


Animorphs Initiative

by FalseProphet (Batmanthegroomer)



Category: Animorphs (TV), Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Animorphs - Freeform, D&D, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Original Characters - Freeform, Original Story - Freeform, Other, Tabletop Gaming, soundcloud adaptation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-08-28 05:30:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 30,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16717379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batmanthegroomer/pseuds/FalseProphet
Summary: (A novel adaptation of my homebrew Animorphs tabletop Campaign setting. More info on that can be foundhere)Katherine, Tyrel, Kilohana, Kioshi, Everett and Gillette are just normal kids. Strangers to each other and a little out-of-place-awkward during a weekend retreat to End School Violence. Things turn upside-down as the group witnesses an alien spaceship crash and a creature calling itself an andalite appears to them.What follows is a mad dash to save the human race. The group find themselves entrusted to stave off yeerk domination of earth until the andalite forces can arrive en mass to aid them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my personal adaptation of our tabletop sessions. The campaign itself is set up in modern 2018 America and will follow roughly the same arcs as the book series. Canon has been changed/adapted mostly to help gaming mechanics run smoothly and to help introduce people to the fandom who have no prior knowledge of it.
> 
> The characters and their decisions/personalities/backgrounds/etc are up to my players--I'm just putting it all in novel format!
> 
> All art is done by my husband (who plays Everett). 
> 
> Audio recordings of our sessions in full can be found [ here. ](http://www.animorphsinitiative.com)

My name is Katherine and that’s about all I can tell you. I have to keep things pretty secretive for now because everyone’s life depends on it—yeah, even yours. 

Hopefully someday—hopefully soon—that will change, but for now you just have to believe me. It’s a tall order, but you need to know what I know.

Over the summer I signed up to chaperone a school field trip for my little brother. I’m in college but he’s still in high school. He’s autistic and the school didn’t want to exclude him but they didn’t have anyone suitable to supervise—they asked me. I wasn’t going to do it but my parents thought it was a done deal, so I agreed. It was just going to be a long weekend at some kind of camp, something about ending school violence, I thought I might be able to relax a little.

Fat chance.

I love Everett but he can be a real handful and only a few minutes into the bus ride I was regretting my choice. It’s probably like that for most siblings but doubled for Everett. My family has spent the last ten years adapting to his needs and it’s no cake walk. My parents try too hard and they say I don’t try hard enough.

When we arrived at the campground—way out in the country, at least two hours from Everett’s high school—I was given my list of students. I was in charge of four kids. It was way less than the other chaperones but I guess everyone assumed Everett would be equal to about three or four kids. I was offended—he was tough but he wasn’t that tough. 

I asked Everett if he knew any of the kids in our group and of course he didn’t. He recognized two of them from the hallways but didn’t know their names or anything about them. I thought it might be easier that way, maybe they’d all be easier to control and coral if they were strangers.

Everett had just turned fifteen so he was the youngest. He was kid of a scrawny kid, freckles and with my dad’s Jewish nose. Next was a kid named Kilohana, dark skinned and athletic. He looked like he was an Islander and with a name like that I was guessing maybe Hawaiian. The only girl in my group was named Gillette, seventeen, kind of physically intimidating but pretty and well put together. She was the only one from a different school, attending from a local Catholic School who had left students the option of going on the retreat. The final kid in my group was another seventeen-year-old named Kioshi. He was a smallish Japanese student who’d just transferred in. His accent was thick when he did speak which wasn’t often at all.

Most of that first night was just unpacking and socializing and me realizing I’d made a big mistake. I had forgotten how loud and obnoxious teens were—not my group necessarily—and I couldn’t think straight. All the other chaperones seemed really occupied and aside from a few little moments of small talk we all kind of ignored each other. 

I knew it was a risk and I knew it was a bad idea but if I was going to make it another three days I was going to need help. I was going to need the kind of help I had to keep secret. I needed Tyrel and I needed… illegal substances. As a medical student I knew all the reasons not to but I’d gotten into them a few years back and, well, the rest is history.

I led my group to our cabin—just the five of us—and pulled out my phone to send a desperate text.

‘I’m desperate. I’ll pay you double and even cover your fare over if you can get to me ASAP.’

I clicked send.

“I-I need the bed in the corner,” Everett said confidently, even as Gil approached the bed in question. “I just d-do,” he finished as she opened her mouth.

Gil gave him a strange look but obliged. She swung her bag back over her shoulder and rolled her eyes as she walked away. Kilohana took a top bunk and Kioshi set up on the bottom. Gil ended up across from my bed, right next to the large dresser provided for us. Just one dresser. I felt an ache start behind my temples.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

‘ur lucky jus got out from work. where? usual place?’

‘I’m afraid not, it’s kind of far out which is why I’m willing to double everything.’

I paused and glanced up at my cabin-mates—er, my charges—once more. None of them seemed to be paying me any attention. They were unpacking and trying not to be awkward teenagers. I wished them luck and sent Tyrel the campground address.

‘wtf?! gurl ur crazy’

‘Please! I told you I’m desperate! You know I’m good for the money!’

‘…’

I cursed under my breath. I’d known Tyrel a long time—we’d briefly known each other our senior year of high school years ago—but we weren’t close. He really didn’t owe me anything. On top of that I was calling him out to a rather… dangerous area for a young black genderqueer drug dealer. I didn’t blame him for turning me down.

‘ur lucky i like u’

‘Thank you!’

‘mmhmm’

“K-katherine I need to get ready for bed,” Everett’s voice pulled my attention away from my phone.

“Ok?”

“That means I ne-need to go to the bathroom,” he pointed behind me at the cabin door. 

“You don’t need me to go with you, do you?” I asked hesitantly, lowering my voice in case he was embarrassed.

“No, that’s juvenile. I am not a-allowed to leave m-my chaperone. That’s y-you. You’re the chaperone.”

I clicked my tongue against the back of my teeth and nodded.

“Right, yeah. Anyone else need to go?” I glanced at the rest of my charges again and was faced with three rather blank looks. “I guess that’s a no. Ok well, nobody leave while we’re gone—you get busted and I get busted and you won’t like me when I’m busted.”

“Easy there, She-Hulk,” chuckled Gil as she sat down on the foot of her chosen bed, “where exactly are we going to go? Hunting?”

“Just… don’t set anything on fire, ok?”

I got as much confirmation as I figured I would get from a group of teens and ushered Everett out of the cabin. It was early November so the sun had set almost immediately at six o’clock. Luckily we had mild winters so I didn’t feel like I needed to bundle up to walk a few moments out to the bathrooms. The whole thing reminded me of all the things I could have been doing—all the studying I could have gotten done—if I’d just stayed home.

“You know if you d-didn’t want to come you could have sa-said no,” Everett stated as he gripped his toothbrush tightly in one hand.

“Not really, I mean… Technically yes but—I wanted to come.”

“You’re a really b-bad liar.”

“Who says I’m lying?”

Everett turned to glance sidelong at me and fixed me with his thousand-yard-stare. It wasn’t often that he made eye contact and when he did it was pointed and lasted a little too long. He had to remind himself to meet eyes with people around him and so I tried not to react negatively to his attempts. I gave him a wild shrug and he seemed placated for the time being.

“I’m going into the boys’ room. You do-don’t need to follow me.”

“Well I can’t follow you even if I wanted to, it’s the boy’s room.”

“We both know you-you could if you wanted. They said they’d m-make sure I was accommodated. I am the only a-autistic student in the school and it w-would look bad if th-they screwed this up.”

I couldn’t help but give him a smirk as he walked into the bathroom. In spite common misconceptions autistic people had great senses of humor.

I leaned up against the wall of the bathroom and glanced up at the clear night sky. It really was a nice night, clear but just a little bit wet so the ground wasn’t crunchy underfoot. I could hear a couple owls in the distance and liked to imagine they had good hunting out here. I’d always liked owls.

The rain got a little heavier as Everett finished up and we returned to our cabins. When we got back the rest of the kids were in pajamas and in bed. Rules of the retreat stated that after 9pm it was quiet time—meaning we didn’t have to go to sleep but we were essentially confined to our cabins aside from bathroom trips. It hadn’t occurred to me that these teens had been up since probably 6am, hopefully that meant they’d all be out and I could meet Tyrel without too many questions.

I silenced my phone, setting Tyrel’s contact on vibrate. I knew he’d be at least another hour and a half so I settled in and pretended to prep for sleep myself.   
I’m not sure how but I fell asleep, propped up against the wall with my phone in my lap. The buzzing against my wrist brought me back to groggy reality and it took me a second or two to remember what was going on. I squinted at the phone as I brought it to my face.

‘walkin n2 woods if i die im cumin back 2 haunt u’

‘Meet you in five minutes. I saw a clearing when we drove back here and Google says it’s not far. I haven’t heard banjos yet so you should be ok.’

‘u r not funny’

I glanced quickly around the cabin at my charges. They all appeared to be sleeping and at least one of them was snoring rather loudly. I let my gaze linger on Everett for a second or two longer—knowing he could fake sleep like a professionally trained actor—but eventually decided I couldn’t wait forever and he was likely really asleep. 

I threw on a hoodie, stepped into shoes so worn I couldn’t recall the last time I’d actually untied them, and slipped out of the cabin. I had a lot of practice being quiet—our house was huge and when Everett was little he slept so restlessly that even a sneezing mouse could wake him.

I wish I would have paid more attention. I wish Tyrel wouldn’t have agreed to meet me. I wish I had never agreed to go on that trip…


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KATHERINE CONTINUES
> 
> (See end of chapter for image.)

I kept my phone out to light—and guide—my way as I walked through the woods. By the time I could see the clearing ahead of me I was fairly damp from the light rain, it dulled the sound of the forest so it had been an eerily quiet walk. I could just see Tyrel pacing ahead, rainbow colored fade damp and flopped over, outlined by the dim lights of an abandoned construction site in the distance. He had his 6’3 frame hunched in on itself so tightly he looked like a scared little boy and not the 23 year-old he was. 

Stepping out into the clearing I lifted my hand to catch his attention. He turned to me and I saw relief on his features but it didn’t last long. He opened his mouth to call out to me—I assume—but nothing came out and his face was soon set in a scowl. I watched his eyes drift from me to just over my shoulder. Feeling something in my gut I turned around… and from the forest out walked Everett, Kilohana, Kioshi and Gillette. They looked slightly bewildered but more awake than I felt. They were still in their pajamas and slipped on shoes, not having wasted time to dress properly before following me out.

“Oh hell no,” Tyrel hissed, waving and moving as if to leave.

“Everett! What are you doing out here?” I growled.

“Following you… what are you doing out here?”

“Meeting a… Meeting a friend.”

“Well he’s leaving. Why-why did you come out here to meet him if he w-was just going to leave?”

“He’s leaving because he came to meet me, not all of you!”

“We didn’t want to get in trouble if they found us without you,” Gil said with a shrug, somehow not freezing in a tank top and booty shorts. I fixed her with a narrow-eyed look which did not seem to phase her at all.

“Well now we’re all going to get into trouble. Let’s get back—”

“You’re just going to l-let him leave?” Everett protested, pointing towards Tyrel.

“He found his way here and he can find his way back,” I reached out to grab Everett’s hand and put his arm down.

“What the fu—”

I turned as Tyrel’s expletive was cut off. He was staring up at the night sky, fishing frantically in his pocket for his phone. Myself and my wayward charges followed his gaze.

One of the large clouds which had settled over the moon looked… strange. A huge hole was forming in the center of it, almost like someone had opened a black hole right behind it. The soft and fluffy material was being sucked into itself leaving a black hole to the night sky in its wake. 

Suddenly what appeared to be a shooting star careened through the hole. I heard one of the kids behind me—Gillette it turned out—pull out their phone as well. I held out my arms to try and prevent them from moving forward any further.

Under are awe-struck gazes the shooting star fell faster and faster towards the ground. However as it fell it became clearer and my eyes recognized what I was looking at before my mind accepted it. We were watching a spaceship—an actual, real spaceship. It was sleek and it was coming down fast. As if that wasn’t enough to make me question if I was really awake, two more ships suddenly popped out of the cloud behind the first. These two ships were rounded balls and they circled around in the first ship’s wake almost like meteors. 

I felt fear grip me. We had to get out of there and it had to be now. I made brief eye contact with Tyrel and he seemed to have the same idea. Unfortunately as we turned to look at the woods—which seemed like the safest place to go—all of the trees were bent backwards. It looked like some huge force had just shoved them all back. They were pulling and whipping as if in some hurricane force winds. At any minute it looked like the whole forest would be uprooted.

It wasn’t safe.

“Construction site!” Tyrel shouted, pointing ahead of us, deeper into the clearing. We would have to run towards the ship but it did seem like a safer bet than the forest. I nodded.

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” I grabbed Everett’s shoulders and then we were all running.

Ahead of us, impossible to miss, the dog fight continued. The first, sleek ship was damaged and we could see smoke pouring out from behind it. It must have been obscuring the vision on the two ships trailing it which is why they were circling like vultures. 

For a few breathless moments as we ran for cover it looked like the sleek ship was going to slam nose first into the ground. It was falling too fast, coming in too close. At the last possible second it pulled up, barely missing the ground. The two ships behind were not so lucky and they hit the ground with two loud explosions.

Immediately Everett went down, clutching his hands to his ears and nearly vibrating. Gillette—phone still out—had fallen behind and Kilohana was close with her, trying to pull her along. Kioshi and Tyrel were almost at the safety of the construction site, which left Everett and I somehow in the middle. 

As I tried to get Everett up and moving once more the only remaining ship continued to zoom towards us. It was now parallel to the ground but moving erratically, the maneuver had taken a lot out of the ship, the pilot, or both. It was coming at us fast and I realized we wouldn’t make it to the buildings in time. I hunkered down next to Everett and tried to prepare us both for the crash.

The ship somehow managed to slow just enough so that when it tipped to the side it didn’t immediately go head-over-heels and explode. The slightly pointed front dug into the ground and slowed the ship further so that by the time it furrowed its way to the nearest building it came to a stop, tilted to the left, without touching the brick next to it. 

For a few moments everything was still but the smoke continuing to stream from the curved tail on the back of the ship. The noise ceased and Everett uncurled, looking on in curiosity just like the majority of my charges. Kioshi was the only one who—like me—seemed to understand that this was way beyond us. He stood rather immobile, staring at the chrome and reflective ship.

Moving away from Gillette—who moved to join Tyrel in filming the ship—Kilohana started towards the building which the ship had almost hit. He was almost inside when it happened… a voice sounded in my head. I didn’t hear it with my ears but I still heard it all the same. 

[I’m coming out. Don’t be afraid.]

I must have been going crazy.

None of us moved.

A hissing sound announced the seal on the ship being broken and a thin strip of light appeared on the right side—away from the building. As the doorway opened a ramp slid out and paused, hanging in the air awkwardly. The ramp seemed to (somehow) sense that the ship was not upright, that it was slightly tilted, and adjusted accordingly. It bent towards the ground until it made contact and braced itself. 

Blinking in disbelief I watched as a silhouette appeared in the doorway. My mind immediately ran back to centaurs—half mand and half horse. The alien walked on four hooves but had the upper torso and head of a human… sort of. The head was oddly shaped, more triangular than a human’s. It had two large deer-like ears and two stalks like the eyes of a snail coming from the very top of its head that swung back and forth. A long, puffy mane surrounded its head and neck like a lion, disappearing into a gray space suit. The arms were long and weak-looking, ending in hands with too many fingers. Most shocking of all however was this creature’s tail… it was curved, wicked and looked more like a scorpion’s tail than anything. It looked partially armored and ended in a wicked blade.

As the creature stepped out of the ship completely one final detail stuck out—the alien was impaled. A beam of metal was thrust through its body—where the two halves met—and it was very clearly not supposed to be there. Dark, black blood dripped off the end and stained the suit. As the hooves reached the ground off the end of the ramp the creature stumbled and went down.

This was an alien. An alien had just crashed. There was… an alien…

My head was swimming, I was sweating and my vision was fuzzy. I heard a ringing in my ears followed by the rushing sound of my own pulse. I felt myself wobbling and then I was down. I didn’t feel myself make contact with the ground but I hit and blacked out. The next few seconds saw Tyrel and Gillette approach the alien while Everett attempted to wake me. 

As I sat up and my rebooted brain tried to reconcile what I was witness to, Tyrel approached us calmly.

“It’s hurt,” he said in a kind voice, “can you help?”

“I… uh…” I nodded, trying to remember how to move and think. Moving to my feet Everett, Kioshi, Kilohana and myself joined the others at the alien’s side. Large black eyes watched us curiously while the stalk eyes moved around to keep watch.

“It’s hurt,” Gillette echoed, pointing as if I could not see the literal extraterrestrial in front of us.

I removed my hoodie and crouched down, trying to look the wound over and distract myself with medical knowledge that may or may not apply to the being I was sharing a planet with. A soft, gentle hand touched my arm.

[Do not worry yourself, the wound is fatal. I will die.] The voice was soft and feminine.

“Yeah, probably,” I admitted callously. Everett was not the only one who could state the obvious and my head was still reeling. The creature seemed to smile at me with its eyes.

[I am Tyrileon-Cabilliac-Jortii, an andalite warrior prince. I… come with grim news. Your planet is about to be—no—your planet is already under attack.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tyrileon-Cabilliac-Jortii by Nic
> 
>  


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KATHERINE CONTINUES
> 
> (See end of chapter for image.)

“Under attack?” Kilohana whispered.

“Under attack by what?” Gil pressed.

[Your planet is being invaded by a parasitic species called yeerks. My race we have—we have fought them for years and followed them here. We had—we were not prepared. We knew they were here but we did not know they were here in such force. We were not prepared for their pool ship… we…]

The andalite’s voice suddenly stopped and a wave of pain ran through me. It made me stiffen and sit up straight, causing a few of the kids around me to gasp. As quickly as it came it was gone.

“What was that?!” Gil hissed, fear just barely evident in her voice.

[I apologize… that was… me. I am sorry I cannot do more than warn you. I wish there was more I could do…]

“What are these yeerks?” I asked, frowning at the black blood now all over my hands.

[They are a vile species intent on enslaving all others. They are small and completely helpless in their natural forms though impervious to much damage. They infest a host by entering through… usually through… an ear canal. They then meld and melt into the host’s brains until they control them completely. They enslave them within their own bodies.]

“Th-that’s terrible,” Everett whispered in horror. Tyrileon nodded solemnly.

“How… how do you kill them?” Kilohana pressed.

[It is… complicated.]

“Can they be hurt?”

[Yes, and they have one great weakness. Every three days they must leave their host to feed. They only feed on one thing—a bioactive, a living light called a kandrona.]

“If you… if you kill the host do you kill the yeerk?”

“Katherine quit asking questions! What are you going to do, fight them?” Tyrel hissed at me.

[That’s it!] A jolt of life seemed to flash through Tyrileon, though her movements looked stiff and painful as she shifted. One large main eye winced closed.

“What’s it?” Kilohana asked.

[On my ship—there is a small, white cube. Bring it to me!]

Without waiting for my warning—which I was seconds away from giving—Tyrel, Kilohana and Gil immediately ascended the ramp into the andalite’s ship. I narrowed my eyes at their backs.

“Does it hurt?” Everett whispered. I glanced to him and then to the silent, frozen in place Kioshi.

[I am a warrior,] Tyrileon said with confidence, [I have been prepared for this.] Her words were sad but finite. Her weaponized tail—which I now realized looked a great deal like the tail of the ship—twitched against the ground. She glanced up at the sky with all four eyes.

[We don’t have much time, they’ll be coming for me.]

“Who? The yeerks?”

[Yes.]

“Guys, hurry up!” I shouted, suddenly feeling panicked. I glanced down at my hands where I held my hoody to the alien’s wound. Everything was inky, sticky and black.

“Should we take-take it out?”

“No!” I gasped. “That will only make it worse.”

[I am not in pain, Everett.]

My eyes grew wide. I must have said his name… right?

Loud footsteps on the ramp announced Gil, Tyrel and Kilohana’s return. Cupped gently in Tyrel’s hands was a glowing white cube. Instantly Tyrileon held out her hands for it.

[I may not be able to do much to help you, but I can give you this—a great weapon. With this technology you will be able to fight back, perhaps just enough to hold off yeerk control until my people come to your aid.]

“And how soon will that be?” I asked breathlessly.

[I do not know,] Tyrileon answered truthfully, [I do not know what messages my ship was able to get off before I crashed. At best I would say a year…]

“A year!” Myself and a few of the kids echoed in horror.

“How are we supposed to fight off immortal alien slugs until then?”

[Yeerks are not immortal, and you will fight them with this,] Tyrileon held out the cube on one palm as it grew slightly. [With this you will be able to become any animal you can touch. All you must do is touch the animal and concentrate to acquire its… enos ermaff… its current consciousness, like DNA. Then you will be able to change your shape—morph—into that creature. There are… so many rules… but I don’t have time. You don’t have time. I can only tell you this most important rule—never stay in a morph for longer than two hours. If you do you will become trapped forever.]

I could not believe what I was hearing. Somehow this was crazier than the alien herself. Was she really telling us we could turn into animals? Was she really expecting us to do that and fight off alien invaders?!

[If not for your race, for yourselves and your families. You must accept this power. This is all that I can give you. You are the only hope your planet has now.]

“How… how does it work?” Kilohana braved, leaning forward.

[Touch the cube.]

Instantly Everett, Kilohana and Gil did so. I blinked incredulously.

“This is crazy,” Kioshi said at last, his voice small and afraid.

“He’s right!” Tyrel echoed, throwing his hands into the air. “How are we supposed to save the world?!”

“With this,” Kilo nodded towards the box.

[You all must take this gift,] Tyrileon said cryptically, [it must be all or none.]

“Katherine, touch it,” Everett whispered.

“How can we tell who’s got a yeerk and who doesn’t?” Gil pressed quickly.

[You cannot as you are. Certain animals have—will give you the ability to detect them…] Tyrileon’s stalk eyes craned upwards. [You must decide. Now!]

I took in a breath and slapped my hand against the box. Kioshi hesitated and then did the same.

“Oh… Oh hell,” Tyrel whispered and then he too put his hand on the glowing cube.

A warm sensation started under my finger tips which quickly became a burning. Just as it was about to be painful it faded and a tingle ran up my arm, almost like a tickle and in spite of everything I had to try and reign in a laugh. Slowly a warm feeling covered me like a blanket straight out of the drier and then it was gone. Slowly we pulled our hands away.

[Now go, quickly. They are coming,] Tyrileon lowered the cube to the ground between her hooved legs, her voice desperate. 

As we moved to our feet she suddenly reached out and grabbed Kioshi’s hand.

[Kioshi, wait,] Tyrileon reached for her suit and pulled off a small, black button. As the wide-eyed and stunned Kioshi stared at her she placed the button in his palm and closed his fingers around it.

[Guard this with your heart and soul,] her voice was a plea but there was something else there. [Now go! GO!]

Her voice was like a starting pistol. We all bolted into action and ran into the construction site blindly, stumbling in our haste. Kilo quickly ducked into half a door and we all followed his lead, climbing over one another and hunkering down. We tried to slow and quiet our breathing and for a moment that was all we could hear—just the panting of six strangers staring at one another in shock. Then it was all drowned out by the arrival of more ships—loud, intrusive ships.

I watched as Gil sat up and moved towards a low window in the building.

“Gil!” I hissed.

“I can see them!” She growled back. Against my better judgement we all scooted towards the window. It provided us a ghastly view of the ships and our andalite friend.

The other ship looked like a giant bug, like a cockroach. It too was sleek but much more round compared to the slender, bean-like shape of the andalite’s vessel. The round ship had a series of windows like eyes along one side and two glaringly obvious canons. I held my breath as a shaft of light signaled the door was opening.

In my head suddenly popped in an image—it was a slimy, yellow-gray ball of liquid. It wiggled around helplessly, occasionally throwing out a small tendril. It reminded me of the symbiotes from Spiderman.

[That is your enemy. That is a yeerk. Helpless but hard to damage in their own bodies they prefer to take hosts.] It was Tyrileon. Facing down her own death she was sparing time to talk to us, educate us.

I watched the ramp from the yeerk ship as it sagged and down came our second alien. 

These creatures were about eight feet long and four feet wide. They looked like ugly, monstrous worms or caterpillars with blob-like, corpulent bodies. They moved forward on hundreds of thin, centipede legs which turned into small pinchers as they rose up along the end kept upright. They didn’t have a head so much as the bodies came to an end in a grotesque circular mouth and far too many teeth. Four eyes like red jello bounced around in stationary orbit around the mouth.

[These are taxxon. They are willing allies of the yeerks. They are foul creatures and deserve death near as much as the yeerks themselves.]

“They’re disgusting,” Gil whispered. 

Six of these taxxon crawled from the ship and surrounded Tyrileon.

Following the taxxon came another species twice as frightening. They looked like dinosaurs, like more humanoid velociraptors. They walked on two feet—two clawed, t-rex feet—and stood eight feet tall. Their long necks ended in slightly more bird-like faces with piercing beaks and three horns atop their heads. Their long, rather dexterous looking arms were clawed as well and on their wrists, elbows, knees, ankles and calves they had blades. The finishing touch was a long tail, bladed all the way down and ending in a club like a morning star.

“That’s overkill,” Kilohana muttered.

[These are hork-bajir, the shock troops of the yeerk. Their entire race has been enslaved, not a single one of them is free anywhere. They are to be pitied.]

“Pitied?” Tyrel grumbled. “How am I supposed to pity that?!”

[He’s here…] This time the andalite’s voice was small, afraid. [He—This abomination is your greatest foe. He is ruthless and cunning. He will stop at nothing to get what he wants and right now that is your planet. He is in charge of the invasion here and should never be under estimated. He is the only one of his kind—the only yeerk with an andalite host… Visser Two.]

I stared hard at the yeerk ship ramp. It sagged hard under the weight of Visser Two. As he stepped onto the ground I realized there was as much diversity among andalites as there was among humans. Tyrileon had seemed graceful like a gazelle but Visser Two—Visser Two was a Clydesdale. He was gigantic and muscular, carrying himself like a strange body builder. His arms did not appear weak, and his tail sat well above his head, twitching. Confidence radiated off of him and he didn’t even bother to swivel his stalk eyes around. None of the other yeerk controlled aliens—controllers—looked at him.

Tyrileon’s voice had been odd but not unwelcome but as Visser Two stepped onto the ground a thought occurred to me… Just as it did I heard his voice. I heard the voice of the controller Tyrileon called an abomination. His voice in my head was like a violation and I wanted to shut it out but I couldn’t.

[At long last I have found you, Prince Tyrileon-Cabilliac-Jortii. How many years have we played this game only for it to end like this? What a shame. I expected more out of you.]

“Look, humans!” Kilohana gasped, pointing to the ship. At least six humans did indeed step down off the ramp from the yeerk ship. 

[I had wanted this to be a fight. I wanted you to fall by my doing alone, alas, it was not to be. If only you could hear him scream, though… he is very hard to control right now. It’s annoying. I had assumed him completely broken but I guess not. No matter, he will be after this.]

I could hear Everett almost whimper next to me and I reached out to grab his shoulder tightly. 

“Oh my god. What—what’s going on?” Gil gasped, covering her mouth as she stared ahead at the confrontation.

The Visser’s body began to warp and wiggle. His legs suddenly seemed to explode like an over-stuffed stocking, swelling until they were four times their original size. His body shot upwards and his arms, his tail, his head—everything became a wildly flailing tendril. Soon the andalite was gone and in its place was a horrible four legged mass of whipping, wild tentacles, slapping at the air violently.

[I had wanted to infest you, hand you over to my most trusted underlings… but this will have to do,] Visser Two lamented.

Movement caught my eyes and I could just barely make out Tyrileon from the other side of this creature. Struggling against her fatal wound she moved somehow to her hooves. She scraped at the ground and hoisted her tail high above her head. I could almost hear her battle cry. She reared up onto her back legs and charged

Right

For

Visser Two…

For the briefest of seconds I thought she stood a chance. For just a second her brave charge made me think she’d held something back and had a plan. Just for a second and then… and then…

“No,” someone near to me whispered.

Visser Two’s tentacles lashed out. One, two, three of them were sliced clean off by Tyrileon’s tail but she was outnumbered. The tentacles all converged onto her, grabbing her everywhere they could. Visser Two lifted her into the air as her tail continued to strike, and then with a horrible laugh echoing soundlessly in my head Visser Two pulled Tyrileon apart limb from limb. 

She was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crash Site by Nic
> 
>  


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KATHERINE CONTINUES

My stomach churned and it was all I could do not to scream. I watched as the taxxon rushed forward and began to devour the pieces of Tyrileon left behind. I quickly looked away and covered my mouth.

“What do we do?” Tyrel gasped. “What the hell do we do!?”

“I don’t know!” I managed.

“We fight, isn’t that what she said?” Gil said, sounding far more sure than I felt.

“We can’t fight—not here like this… we need—we need to get away,” I looked to Tyrel who nodded. 

“Guys, guys we need to leave quickly,” Kilohana said urgently, almost tapping the window, “the humans out there are coming this way. I think—I think they found our footprints!”

“Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!” Tyrel moved to his feet and began looking around the room hurriedly as if he would find a solution to our problem there.

“We can’t leave the way we came in or they’ll see us…” Kioshi whispered, nose pressed to the window.

“Get away from the window!” I barked as quietly as I could while still sounding like I was in charge.

While I tried to calm my own mind I heard a strange sound from the other end of the building. Looking up I watched as Tyrel walked carefully towards the stair well and… the nest of fledgling barred owls hooting softly. 

“Tyrel…” I said cautiously.

“She said… we could turn into… anything we could touch, right?”

“You believed her!?” I almost shouted, calming only as I felt Everett grip my arm tightly.

“We need to try,” he whispered. I reluctantly turned to watch Tyrel.

The tall young man reached out carefully. The owls—three in total—eyed him with suspicion, heads rolling side to side as they sized him up. They puffed their feathers and hooted a little louder. I winced. Tyrel reached out undeterred and I saw his fingers connect with one of the owls. I held my breath as the owl under his touch seemed to calm, the others continued to hoot in alarm.

As Tyrel stepped back Kilo and Gil immediately moved to follow his lead. I wanted to shout at them to come back but… if it worked… I felt like I was going insane.

As Gil and Kilo touched owls as well I felt Everett move to stand. I tried to stop him but he shrugged out of my grasp easily. Kioshi moved stiffly along with my brother towards the owls to do as the others had done. This just left me.

“C’mon Katherine,” Tyrel pleaded, “you might as well, right?”

“I… I can’t believe this is happening,” I whispered as I moved unsteadily towards my feet.

“Agreed,” Kioshi said, looking down at his hand as if it was now alien to him having touched the owl.

I frowned and chewed on my bottom lip as I approached the owls. From the floor across the room they had looked only vaguely threatening—soft, fluffy things—but up close I could see that they were very nearly adults. They were medium sized with huge eyes, strong talons and sharp beaks… beaks that—might I add—were snapping at anything that moved. How had the others touched them so easily? Swallowing my heart and knowing I had precious time to waste I reached out my hand.

I managed to slide my fingers up along the wing of one of the owls, barely avoiding its snapping beak. I wasn’t sure how to do this so I tried to remember what Tyrileon had said. Concentrate and acquire its DNA or something, right? I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on the owl, remembering with painful irony how much I’d always liked owls. They were so free and silent—you only saw one when they wanted you to. I felt the owl under my hand grow still and I pulled my fingers away.

“Is that it? Did it work?” Gil asked, glancing around at us.

“Only one way to find out,” Tyrel whispered. He met my eyes before stepping a little away from the rest of the group. We all stared at him as he stared at a spot on the floor and his eyes seemed to go unfocused. For a few seconds nothing happened and I wondered if maybe there was some kind of carbon monoxide leak in the area that had affected all of us… and then it happened.

Tyrel shrunk. It was super fast—like sci-fi movie ray gun fast—and became a lump in his clothing. The fabric folded and lumped around him so that our only view was a small, wiggling object. I exchanged glances with Gil and moved forward. I crouched down slowly in front of the lump of Tyrel before me.

“Tyrel?” I whispered getting nothing in response. I reached out and grabbed part of his hoody pulling it up and off.

“Oh wow,” I heard Kilohana laugh as I revealed well, a barred owl. “He’s naked—well, I mean… his clothes just fell off.”

The bird puffed up its feathers in anger, fixing me with one of its large round eyes. It made a low hissing sound.

“Tyrel,” I hissed back, trying to remind him of our delicate situation.

[Oh, oh wow…] Tyrel’s voice was suddenly in my head.

“Oh! I can h-hear him!” Everett gasped, “just like the andal-lite!”

[You can… you can hear me?]

I nodded.

[This is… crazy. I can like—oh man—like the owl’s mind is in here with me?] Tyrel-the-owl cocked his head far to one side. [For a second after I morphed I forgot I was me—I was just an owl… it’s fucking insane.]

“Did it hurt?” Kioshi said quietly.

[Not… not really? It felt weird as hell. I could hear all my organs and shit moving around and my bones… it was weird as hell, but… nah, didn’t hurt.]

“Me next!” Gil shouted eagerly, as if having completely forgotten that we were in the dire situation we were in. I remained crouched by Tyrel’s clothing as I turned attention to her. She too seemed to stare off into the distance and lose focus. 

I kept waiting for her to shrink like Tyrel had done. I kept waiting for the tight booty shorts to flutter to the floor. Instead there was an awful ripping sound like leather being stretched to its limit. Gil’s face contorted for a moment into something that almost looked like pain and she glanced quickly down. Following her gaze I saw the source of the ripping noise—long talons stuck out of the toes of her now ruined shoes. They were still human sized but for all intents and purposes they were the feet of an owl. 

“Aww man, these were nice shoes,” Gil lamented, wiggling a talon.

Everett gasped from beside me as it was then that Gil shrunk. It was just as quick as Tyrel though there was far less clothing. I heard all three of the boys turn their heads and advert their gazes. She was small and had owl feet, sure, but the majority of her was still a human. 

From the folds of her tank top and shorts I could see pink skin slowly become toasted in color. I tried to watch what I could but a shuffling to my right caught my attention. Kilohana had started his own transformation. 

My heart was pounding and my mind raced so fast I could barely think. I glanced over at Everett and nodded. This strange power worked—we could become animals—and right now we needed to be anywhere but there. We could discuss later what our next move was but right then we had to get out before the human-controllers found us. 

I squared my shoulders and concentrated. I thought about those owls in the corner. I thought about owls in general. I thought about watching Tyrel and Gil and Kilo start transforming. I thought about those changes happening in myself.

My skin started to tingle. I glanced down at my hand and watched as the pattern of feathers began to show up—almost like flat, henna tattoos. They spread down my fingers, up my hand, across my palm and past my wrist. As I watched—marveling at how pretty they were in spite of everything—they popped up and became textured, became 3D, became—well—feathers!

I closed my eyes as I felt them spread down my back and pop up against the inside of my shirt. I felt them spread down my legs and up my neck. Tyrel was right—it didn’t hurt but I can’t say it felt numb. It was a strange sensation that I’m sure there’s no real human word for since—until just then—it wasn’t a human experience. My body just felt suddenly textured.

The shrinking was a shock. I was so focused on the feathers that I had forgotten that part and it was jarring. One second I was staring at my hand and the next it was dark as I became completely enshrouded in my hoody. My legs shriveled up and soon I was standing barefoot on crumpled jeans. I was an ugly, owl-sized person covered in feathers. I was also wildly grateful that it didn’t hurt.

I almost stumbled forward as my center of gravity shifted and I had to adopt the ‘chicken stance’ to stay upright. I could feel the muscles in my arm shifting and pulling my arms back into wings. I could feel myself ripping small holes into the seat of my pants as toes turned into gripping talons. My nose and lips melted together, stretching forward like I was making the world’s best fish lips. They hardened over just as my eyes suddenly bulged forward out of my skull. 

My skull reshaped and my tiny little eyeballs slipped back into their sockets. It wasn’t long before they bulged and became huge temporarily blinding me as they became the signature gigantic owl eyes—perfect for a nocturnal creature such as myself.

I had almost forgotten Tyrel’s warning about the owl ‘being in his head’ with him and as my transformation finished I could feel a strange… something. It wasn’t like there were two brains inside the owl’s—my—head but I almost could feel another consciousness, another sentience just out of reach of my own. It was like the sensation of remembering when you remembered something versus actually remembering it. Or when a name or place or smell is familiar but you can’t quite place it. There was something else there, something else just out of reach… But I was still me. I was still a 24 year-old Jewish pre-med student who had just witnessed an alien crash landing while chaperoning a weekend retreat.

Was this… was this my life now?!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KATHERINE CONTINUES
> 
> (See end of chapter for image.)

[This is incredible!] Gil’s voice was in my head suddenly, too loud and too excited.

[Be careful!] I warned, [don’t let them hear you!]

[Can they hear me?]

[I don’t know—that’s why you need to be careful!] I felt like a fool as I pulled and wrenched my way free of my clothing. Taloned feet hit the cement and it felt like trying to walk with rocks in my shoes. I felt like I couldn’t grip and I didn’t have balance, any little push would have knocked me over. 

Glancing up from my awkward owl dance I saw Everett kneeling in front of me. He hadn’t transformed. He was watching me attentively, face hard to read as always. I chittered, grinding my beak against itself as if trying to talk to him—forgetting for the moment that I could no longer do that. 

Everett glanced over his shoulder and I saw Kioshi, who also had not yet transformed. The dark haired boy held the button in his hand, frowning hard. 

“She said… she said to guard this. If I transform it will just be here with our clothes,” Kioshi said frightfully, shaking his head. “I can’t just—I can’t just leave it here…”

“We can g-give it to Katherine,” Everett pointed at me, “she ca-can carry it for you.”

[Good idea,] Tyrel chimed in, [wait—what are we going to do about our clothes?!]

[Our phones!] Gil agreed flapping wildly from atop her small fabric pile.

“I can hi-hide them,” Everett stood and looked around the room for a moment. He pointed to a stack of large crates in the back corner, covered in cobwebs and dust.

[Do it. Quickly!] I said, bobbing my head up and down in a way that somehow felt entirely natural though it would have made me look like an idiot had I still been human.

Kioshi gave Everett a strained look as the boy’s approached each other. I could tell Kioshi was more-than-reluctant to hand over the button specifically entrusted to him but we really didn’t have time for that now. He very cautiously passed it to my brother, who nodded and cradled the thing in both hands as he moved towards me.

As Kioshi began his transformation Everett crouched down before me. He held out the button and I reached out to take it—with a wing. 

“Uhm, Katherine not l-like that,” Everett whispered as I brushed feather tips that felt like they should have been fingers against his hand. 

[Ah, right, yeah, sorry. Let me…] I lifted a foot next and opened and closed my talons. That felt like it could work. I tried to balance on one leg and grab the button but I kept missing. Either my aim was off or the claws weren’t quite that dexterous.

“Use your beak,” Everett said quietly, as if trying to save me from the embarrassment of not knowing how to be an owl. I leaned forward and opened my beak. He gently slid the disk into my mouth and I clamped down as hard as I felt I safely could.

[Ok, yeah, this works,] I nodded and the disk did not budge.

Everett quickly began gathering our piles of clothes until he had haphazardly assembled the world’s strangest laundry basket. Five barred owls all watched him waddle off behind the crates as if he were the strange one. A moment later I heard a flapping, scuffling noise and another barred owl hopped up onto a crate.

[Everett?]

[I… am… a bird,] he was speechless.

[Pretty bird,] Kilohana sang.

[Are you all just… completely unaware of the situation that we’re in?] Kioshi’s voice was terse and his accent somehow still came through. [Katherine please—keep a good grip on that uh… button.]

[I will, I promise,] I rubbed my tongue over part of the disc. The owl tongue was not nearly as sensitive as my regular tongue. [Let’s—let’s head back for the cabin. Tyrel just follow us. We can regroup there and try to figure this out but right now we need to be--]

[Not here?]

[Yeah, not here.]

The next few moments was a flurry of uncoordinated hopping, flapping and hissing. All six of us spun, danced and beat our wings at the air with varying levels of success. Myself and one of the other owls—Tyrel it turned out—managed to wiggle our way out the way we’d come in.

Getting air under our wings was much easier once we had actual air to work with. A few flaps and we were air born and the owl brain was elated. 

[Oh wow, once the owl figures out—wow…] It was astute, I know, but I couldn’t help it. Up until then I had been unable to escape the panic of our situation but now? Up here in the night sky? I was untouchable.

[Is that… Bob!? What a dickhead!] Tyrel’s voice broke me out of my daze and I tilted my head to see if I could follow his line of sight. He was almost circling back by the construction site where the group of human controllers were advancing on our hiding spot. 

[Bob?]

[My manager at Waffle House! That’s his bald ass head right there! I knew he was a fuckin’ parasite!]

[Is everyone out? Is everyone on the way back?]

[Yes,] Gil’s voice sounded aggravated, [Kilo is just in front of me and…]

[WOOHOO!] I almost winced as Kilo’s voice intruded upon my thoughts. [I love this! Wow—WOW!]

[Everett? Kioshi?]

[I’m ok,] Everett said, [beside you—I think?]

[I’m out but—I can’t seem to—flying is… hard.]

[Try to give the owl more control, if that makes sense?]

[Yeah, perfect sense,] Kioshi snarled back. At least he was out of the building.

I flapped a few times hard against the drizzling air and gained a great deal of distance straight up. I scanned with my huge eyes the horizon and could see further than I knew was possible. Forget the campsite—I could almost see the highway, and the water tower and…

[I’m assumin’ that clusterfuck of ugly ass cabins is the campground?] Tyrel pressed as he flapped up to join me.

[Yeah. We’re the second-to-last on the right side there, uh… follow them,] I muttered. It was very hard to keep the envy from my voice as I watched two owls zoom off towards the cabin. One of them was almost doing aerial tricks—Kilohana I imagined.

I quickly picked out Everett flying solo and dropped down to fly closer to him.

[Are you doing ok?]

[Yes, Katherine. I’m not falling am I?] Everett sounded a little tense as well, understandable really. I adjusted my speed to match his and had to—figuratively—bite my tongue. I wanted to give him instruction but I knew that wouldn’t go over well. As crazy as this was for me I couldn’t imagine what it was like for him. 

We were alerted to the explosion just seconds before it happened—something in my ear area lit up like a warning. I could just barely hear Tyrel’s thought speak voice before a deafening boom knocked me senseless. The air was suddenly super heated and for a second I feared we were all about to become barbeque owls. Everett and I tumbled through the air helplessly for a moment before we were both able to right ourselves.

[What was that?!]

[The-the ship—the andalite ship it—it blew up!] Kioshi sounded far away, dazed. 

[Everybody double-time to the cabin!] I followed my own advice, making sure Everett was doing the same.

We covered the distance like it was nothing. By the time Everett and I arrived there were three owls already seated on the cabin. Landing was a bit tougher than taking off and I missed my grip the first time. I toppled over and rolled down the cabin roof before dropping down and opening my wings to catch myself. I could almost hear Tyrel laughing at me as I swooped around and tried again. The second time I stuck the landing.

[Who isn’t here?] I asked after recounting the owls.

[Kioshi,] Gil answered swiftly, turning her sharp eyes towards the horizon.

[Kioshi?!]

[C-coming,] even through thought speak he sounded out of breath. I watched a lone owl, very low in the air, struggling to reach us. He looked almost like he was swimming instead of flying, flapping in a disjointed and strained way. His talons were clutched tightly together and hanging a bit too low.

[Now what?] Kilohana asked as Kioshi struggled to land as I had.

[I… I don’t know,] I glanced down at the roof under my talons, [I suppose we could… keep going? Keep running? I don’t…]

[What about mom and dad?] Everett said quietly.

[Something big just happened, Everett,] I explained as patiently as I could, looking over at owl-Everett. [What if those controllers are tracking us? What if they find us with mom and dad?]

[How could they track us?] Gil piped up curiously. [I mean… no one saw us, did they? We got away.]

[Yeah, they won’t know we were there,] Kilohana stretched his wings, wiggling long feathers experimentally. [Unless they find our clothes and get a hold of our phones…]

[Which they could totally do,] Tyrel hissed.

[It might make more sense if we try to act like nothing happened,] Kilo offered.

My reply was stalled as the night sky suddenly lit up once more. It looked like it was the start of a secondary explosion but then whistling and bright colors filled the sky.

[Fireworks?] Everett asked, puffing up his feathers in anger. [I don’t like fireworks.]

As we all turned to watch the sky light up with an impromptu show, the campground stirred to life. All around us on the ground students, chaperones and campground employees were all walking bleary-eyed into the cold night. They were all confused and enthralled by the light show. A couple of the teens ran towards the woods and many of the chaperones tried to reign in the chaos. 

[It’s a cover-up,] I whispered, [they’re trying to hide the explosion as fireworks!]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How To Owl by Nic


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KATHERINE CONTINUES

[Katherine, I can probably just drop off the face of the earth and ain’t nobody gonna give a shit,] Tyrel started, big owl eyes still watching the fireworks, [but the rest of these kids are just babies, girl. There are gonna be missin’ posters and media will be all up in this mess. Fightin’ alien slugs is gonna be hard but it’ll be damned impossible if we’re doin’ it on the run with these kids’ faces on every damned TV in the country.]

[What are we supposed to do then?]

[We wait,] owl-Tyrel shrugged comically, [if they don’t find our clothes and phones then they ain’t never gotta know we were out there. We just gotta keep this shit real DL and they won’t ever know.]

[Tyrel has a point,] Kilohana said, now stretching and flexing his talons. [My Nani will be looking for me.]

[What if they do find out we were there? What if they come looking for us?]

[Then we lie and if that don’t work then we run and if that don’t work then we take out as many of them as we can on the way down, but we gotta try non-invasive first.]

[What are you some kind of philosopher?] Gil snorted.

[Child do I sound like a Plato!?]

[All right, let’s sneak back into the cabin. This window is open a little,] I nodded towards the window I’d fallen past moments ago. Slowly, one at a time, we all slid off the cabin and ducked into the window. 

[I’m gonna keep watch up here a bit longer,] Tyrel called from his perch.

‘Ok,’ I thought back at him, ‘but I don’t know how long it’s been and the andalite said only two hours.’

He didn’t respond.

Demorphing was easier than morphing, aside from the fact that about halfway through we all seemed to simultaneously realize that we would be naked on the other side. There was a mad dash of six owls attempting to duck and hide under bedding and furniture to preserve whatever dignity we had left. After a tense few seconds we all found ourselves seated on the beds fully clothed and grim-faced. It seemed like now things were finally starting to settle in. Now the full scope of where we found ourselves was becoming reality. Not even Kilohana seemed able to muster a grin.

“Katherine,” Kioshi called as he walked towards me. He held out his hand, “can I have that button back now?”

“Oh, oh yeah uhm,” I turned around and shoved my hand under my blankets. I tried not to watch Kioshi’s worried expression as I fished around for a good few seconds until I produced the small disc. He took it quickly and retired to his bed.

[Oh hell—Katherine, you guys, you ain’t gonna believe this,] Tyrel called from the roof.

“What?” Gil asked, all of us glancing up to the ceiling like fools.

[One of these adults out here—try’ta get everyone back into the cabins and shit—he’s got glowin’ green oil on his shoes… the same color that was leakin’ from the andalite ship.]

“What—what does that mean?” Kilohana asked in a ghastly voice.

[It means he’s working with the yeerks—that or he’s a uh… host or…]

“Controller,” Everett supplied.

[Yeah, that. Controller.]

“They’re here?” Kioshi hissed.

[We got two cars pulling up just outside the campground, few adults meetin’ with whoever is in ‘em,] Tyrel continued to report in. [Oh shit! Somebody coming your way!]

I leapt to my feet as the children in my care stared at the door in fear. I hadn’t asked for this—this was the exact opposite of what I wanted! What was I doing?! How was I supposed to keep up my studies and watch Everett and watch these kids as we tried to fight off an alien invasion? This was insane!

Kilohana and Kioshi stood slowly, backing towards the other end of the cabin with Gil and Everett. I put a finger to my lips to hush them and reached for the knob. 

There were two loud knocks. I took a deep breath and cracked open the door.

“Oh, hey,” I said as casually as possible, vaguely recognizing the black man in front of me.

“It’s… Katherine, yes?”

“Uhm, y-es?”

“Are all your charges accounted for? We had some chaos out here and we’re just trying to make sure nobody is MIA.”

“Oh, Principal Kendrick!” I said in relief, letting the door open a little more so he could peer in. Gil waved awkwardly. 

“Students,” Kendrick said with a nod.

“Principal,” Everett said alone.

“Well, stay inside please. We’re talking with local authorities to try and figure out what’s going on. We’re assured everything is safe and no-one is in danger but until we get word we don’t want anyone leaving their cabins unless it’s an emergency.”

“Yes, sir,” I barked almost too quickly. I was fixed with an odd look.

“All right, try to get some sleep then. We’ve got a busy day planned for tomorrow.”

“Yeah, right, sure!” I waved—feeling foolish—as Mr.Kendrick turned and walked towards the next cabin. I let out a long sigh of relief as I turned and closed the door. I leaned my back up against it and closed my eyes.

“Uh, guys,” Kilohana said tentatively, “there’s another problem.”

“What?”

[Oh hell, what now!?]

“It’s Principal Kendrick,” Kilo moved towards the window, peering out as the man in question knocked on the door of the next cabin. “He was there too, at the construction site. I didn’t recognize him right away but he’s got that weird scar on his forehead. I saw him as we were flying off. I’m sure of it.”

“P-principal Kendrick is a controller too?” Everett groaned, shaking his head vigorously.

[Ya’ll got a school full o’ parasites,] Tyrel scoffed, [I’m coming in. I ain’t riskin’ gettin’ stuck as a fuckin’ owl.]

I moved back to my bed as Tyrel gracelessly fluttered in through the still open window. I indicated him to my bed.

“Go ahead and get under the blankets to morph out; you’ll be naked.”

[Ah fuck.]

I tried not to be weirded out by an owl fluttering around under the bed I was about to sleep in.

“We need more animals—easier to move around in,” Kioshi said quietly, “less obvious.”

“He’s right,” Gil agreed, “what about like… rats?”

“Rats?” Kilohana echoed, clearly just a touch put-off. 

“Didn’t the campground have a-a cat?” Everett asked, fidgeting lightly at the edge of his bed. “We could try a c-cat.”

“A cat sounds good,” I agreed, grabbing my bag from under the bed and digging through it. I pulled out a can of tuna—one of many that I kept around for an occasional snack—and cracked the lid. I saw a few young faces wrinkle their noses in disgust.

“It’s good for you,” I admonished.

“It’s gross,” Gil grumbled, waving a hand in front of her nose.

I sighed and slid open the window a little more, setting the can of tuna on the sill, edging closer to outside. I looked to Gil and indicated the setup as if to ask if that was permissible. She shrugged but didn’t complain further.

“I am shit outta luck,” Tyrel grumbled as he poked his now very human head out from under the blankets. “I ain’t got nothin’ and ya’ll packed like you knew this was gonna happen.”

“It’s a weekend r-retreat,” Everett said, “of course we packed like w-we knew: we d-did.”

“That ain’t what I meant and you know it,” Tyrel continued.

“I have a robe you can borrow?” I offered turning and pulling it out of my bathroom bag. I offered the bright pink terrycloth object hesitantly. Tyrel lifted and eyebrow but did not seem displeased. He carefully swung it over his arms and extracted himself from the blankets.

“Now what?” Kilohana asked, glancing around at all of us.

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully, “now, I guess, we wait.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EVERETT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everett is autistic. I am not autistic, neither is his player. However his player has done a great deal of research into the disorder and hopes to represent them as meaningfully as a neuro-typical person can.

My name is Everett and that’s about all I can tell you. I have to keep things pretty secretive for now because everyone’s life depends on it—yeah, even yours. Hopefully someday—hopefully soon—that will change, but for now you just have to believe me. It’s a tall order, but you need to know what I know.

I had a weird dream.

I was standing in a field but the grass was yellow. It looked like it should have been dead and dry—the kind that breaks easily—but it was alive and flexible. It smelled… minty. In the distance was a row of thick trees, white bark and branches and bright blue leaves. The leaves looked like they might glow in the dark.

I felt calm. It was nice.

Then the andalite was right there in the distance. It wasn’t possible for me to have missed her the first time so she just… appeared there. Which—dream me thought—was just fine. It was nice to see her again. 

She was wearing a different outfit and I got the impression it was her off-duty outfit or something. It was more colorful, a little less form-fitting and flowy. It looked soft.

From her place off in the distance she lifted a hand in greeting. She waved gently. 

I woke as I started to wave back.

I didn’t remember falling asleep, actually what I did remember was trying not to. I suppose I was tired in hindsight and emotional/physical trauma like we’d experienced had a tendency to exhaust people. It wasn’t uncommon to pass out once you finally stopped moving, in spite what people think. Adrenaline is a huge drain on your body.

I know that because forensic science is one of my special interests. It’s the field of science my mother is in and I suppose on an emotional level it makes me feel connected to her. 

She and my father try very hard but they listen to experts more than they listen to me which is sometimes helpful—mostly just frustrating. Some of the people they listen to have good ideas or different ways for me to get things done and cope so I can’t say I hate it entirely. I just wish everyone would listen to us more than their research and numbers.

I was awake less than a full minute before a very obnoxious horn sounded in the distance. It was very campy—no pun intended. It was an entirely unpleasant way to greet the day and I immediately pulled my hands over my ears. My whole body was keyed in on the sound and the vibrating was nearly painful. Luckily the sound did not last long enough to trigger a severe attack of anything, or disrupt my morning too much.

Usually something so strange would upset me a great deal but I had been planning for this trip. I had research what it was like to be at a camp, especially with my peers, and had done many exercises at home to get accustomed to the ordeal. I was excited.  
Of course this was all before the alien. I had no way of knowing that was going to happen. I’m still not sure if I am more or less excited about that.

The cabin stirred to life as the others awoke as well.

Across from me was Gillette. A tall, physically fit girl from a Catholic School. She definitely struck me as the kind of Catholic student who would grow up to be adamantly not Catholic. Towards the end of her bed was the one bunkbed containing Kilohana (on top) and Kioshi (on the bottom bunk). Kilohana was a Hawaiian boy from my school. He belonged to the clique of boys who wore overly large hoodies and were more balanced on skateboards than on their feet. Kioshi had just arrived at our school that year from Japan. He was still rather mysterious to me and that hadn’t changed during our traumatic experience. At the foot of my bed was Katherine, my sister. She was our chaperone and took the job just about as seriously as she took everything else. Tyrel was… over near Katherine somewhere, I think. He was a tall black friend of Katherine’s whom I had never met before. In fact the nature of their relationship was confusing.

“What time is the assembly?” Gillette asked sleepily.

“9. We’ve got… thirty minutes,” Katherine said with a pause. She took a second to look around at all of us, groggy and still half-asleep. “We should stick to the routine. Play along. Unless it seems like they know we were out there last night, act innocent. I think that’s the best option even though it’s risky.” 

“Ok, good ‘cause I gotta take a piss,” Kilo muttered.

For a moment silence hit the cabin and then a few chuckles broke through. We began to gather our bathroom supplies as Tyrel carefully crawled out from under Katherine’s bed. He climbed under her bed covers and was immediately concealed beneath them. Katherine spent a few moments piling a few more blankets and a pillow or two atop him to help hide his lump from wandering eyes.

“Don’t—don’t say anything about last night,” Katherine warned as she prepared to open the door, “we know at least a couple of the adults here are involved. It’s too risky.”

“Obviously,” Gil said with a roll of her eyes.

“Excuse me for being cautious,” Katherine snipped back, opening the door. 

As we filed out I tried my best to be nonchalant. I did not whistle however as that is very misleading. Many comedies and cartoons will try and link whistling to being nonchalant but I have learned that often times it has the exact opposite effect. Instead I tried to think about anything else… I tried not to think about the andalite. I tried not to think about her beautiful chrome ship. I tried not to think about how brave she was. I tried not to think about the power she’d given us. I tried not to think about turning into an owl. I tried very hard not to think about flying. 

“This is going to be t-tough,” I said mostly to myself. I heard an agreeable grunt from Kioshi.

I paused outside the boys’ bathroom. It was a large, shared outhouse with the usual bathroom amenities and shower stalls. Just one wag of the door and I could tell it was too much just then—there were far too many boys and far too much noise. I wouldn’t be able to focus enough to do what I needed to do. 

I stopped and shook my head. Kilo and Kioshi looked at me curiously.

“I c-can’t, not right n-now.”

“Aw, don’t worry. We’ll be in there with you—nobody will know anything,” Kilo tried to reassure me, smiling wide.

“That’s not the pr-problem. I’m fine wi-with that. It’s too—too… much. Too noisy. Too many people. I’m g-going to wait until it th-thins out.”

“Oh, ok man, you do you,” Kilo nodded. Kioshi paused just a second longer to give me one more look over—I think out of concern—before following Kilo into the steamy room.

I leaned against the outside wall to wait, rubbing my fingers over the small towel in my arm. It was a towel from home. It smelled like my regular shampoo and my own house. It was very comforting. I pressed my face into its thread-bare fabric and closed my eyes.  
I saw the andalite. I saw her big, black eyes. I saw her black blood. I saw Visser Two and that horrible thing he’d turned into. I saw all those tentacles… I saw… I saw…

It’s not uncommon to relieve trauma, especially immediately after the events. I could not say it was PTSD but it would certainly haunt me for quite some time. I wondered if I could trust my therapist with this information? Did doctor-patient confidentiality extend to extraterrestrials? I had better not risk it, I thought glumly.

Perhaps I could focus on the positives? Flying had been spectacular. I was a little worried at first because the wind through my feathers was overwhelming, but being able to let the owl ‘help’ was good. I’d like to fly more. Honestly I would have rather been flying just then.

I’m not sure how long I waited but my attention was caught by a steady file of boys leaving the room. It seemed like a great number of them. Perhaps the bathroom was quieter—I decided to take a look.

I reached for the door just as Kioshi pushed it open from the other side. I made an effort to glance up at his face as he suddenly thrust his arm out to the side to bar my entry. I jolted backwards quickly. He shook his head.

“Yeah, not here man,” Kilo affirmed.

So I was not to use the showers. I didn’t have to use the bathroom so I suppose that was good—I’m not sure what I would have done if I had to go. Confused and now a little upset at having that part of my planned-new-routine stopped, I turned and strode behind the other two boys back to our cabin.

If this whole alien thing was going to upset my routine regularly I was going to need more coping mechanisms.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EVERETT CONTINUES

We arrived back at the cabin along with Katherine and Gil as if we had timed it that way—we hadn’t. Kioshi had walked quickly and it felt like he kept looking over his shoulder. I was very confused.

Katherine stepped up to the door and unlocked it, swinging it open carefully and ushering us inside. I stopped a few steps in and cocked my head to one side.

Tyrel—still dressed in Katherine’s pink robe—was standing in the far right corner, arms and legs spread as if he’d dropped something very delicate and didn’t want to risk stepping on it.

“Uh, Tyrel?” Katherine questioned as she closed and locked the door behind us.

“Hmm? Oh, welcome back,” Tyrel rubbed the back of his neck as he walked away from the corner.

“What exactly were you doing over there?” Gil asked suspiciously, it was her bed and her bags Tyrel had been nearest to. She seemed to give everything a very quick once-over.

“Spider,” Tyrel offered. It seemed as if he thought that was helpful or informative. Honestly he could have meant a number of things. I wondered if it was worth it to ask him to clarify. ‘Spider’ was not a sufficient answer.

“I may have some sweat pants and a hoodie that will fit you,” Katherine announced as she began pulling things out of one of her bags. I sat down on my bed to watch, still rubbing my fingers comfortingly on the towel from home.

“I doubt anything you’ve got is gonna fit me, girl,” Tyrel bemoaned, however he looked interested all the same. After a moment of searching Katherine handed him some clothing. He frowned down at it and then looked up at the rest of the cabin.

“Ya’ll have that thing in ten minutes, I’ll change then,” Tyrel pouted.

“Kioshi, wh-why couldn’t I use the showers?” I glanced across the room as Kilohana and Kioshi exchanged looks. Katherine’s head quickly whipped around towards them and I saw a scowl on her face I recognized. She thought they had done something to hurt my feelings.

“I… overheard something in the shower,” Kioshi said slowly. It was hard sometimes to understand him through his thick accent. “Words I recognized from last night—”

“Hang on a second,” Katherine interrupted, pulling out her phone. She tapped a few buttons and some music began playing softly through the phone speakers. It was classical—I’m not sure of the composer as that’s certainly not an interest of mine. The music was nice enough however. She nodded to Kioshi to go on, pressing down with her hands to tell him to keep his voice quiet.

“I could not understand everything but I heard ‘yeerk pool’ and ‘kandrona ray’.”

“Oh, shit,” Tyrel hissed.

“Yeerk… pool?” Gil made a face I couldn’t decipher. It looked like perhaps disgust as her nose was wrinkled when she said it. Oftentimes when people are disgusted by something they wrinkle their noses like a dog when it snarls.

“What’s a kandrona ray?” Kilo pressed but Kioshi could only shrug.

“I remember th-that from last night,” I interjected, “its something they n-need.”

“That’s how they feed—right? Isn’t that what Tyrileon said? They feed on some kind of bio-active light or something. I think she called it a kandrona,” Katherine sounded like she was thinking out loud again. She did that frequently.

“This place is crawlin’ with aliens,” Tyrel flopped backwards onto Katherine’s bed. The clothes she had given him to change into fell over his face and he did not move them.

“Did you see the people talking?” Gil leaned forward from where she sat on the end of her bed. Kioshi shook his head.

“I saw one of them—but just the back of the other. One was perhaps Katherine’s age? He was certainly not a student like us. He had short dark hair, sharp features, gray blue eyes. He was very… athletic? Physically strong.”

“Wait, you saw them in the shower?” Kilohana asked, sitting on the top bunk and swinging his legs back and forth.

“No I—” Kioshi sighed and stopped talking for a moment. I looked to his face and watched his expressions change. His eyebrows were crinkled together and he had his lips pressed tightly against one another. That meant he was either thinking very hard or upset.

Kioshi lifted his hands and touched them together as if making a wall. He parted a few of his fingers.

“There was a-a crease in the wall. I could see through,” he explained. “I heard those words and then I was able to see them.”

“What else did they say?” Tyrel muttered from under the clothes he still had not moved.

“Ah the—adult called the younger one Esplin 993. The younger one—Esplin I suppose?—immediately shushed him.”

“That’s no-not a normal name,” I pointed out. Some names were weird but I couldn’t think of a single person who had numbers in their names. It was degrading in my mind, way to dehumanize someone maybe? In spite of the topic I did start to enjoy the conversation. It very much reminded me of a forensic investigation—there were clues everywhere but we had to piece them together. It was oddly exciting… until I remembered Visser Two and the huge creature he had turned into.

“Wait, you said he was athletic?” Katherine leaned against the wall, watching as Kioshi nodded. “I think I might know who you’re talking about. I remember a guy from one of the chaperone meetings who was just… built like a brick wall. He was part of this group—The Sharing.”

“The Sharing?” Tyrel echoed.

“What’s The Sharing?” I asked, wondering if it would be safe to write things down. It might help us to have our notes easily available but if they were ever found we might be in big trouble.

“It’s uh—a group? I don’t know too much about it. They’re responsible for setting this whole thing up. It seems very organized religious without the religious?”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Tyrel suddenly sat up and pointed at Katherine, “you called me out to the country in the middle of the night, in the middle of the woods during a cult gathering? What the fuck is wrong with you, Katherine!”

“Kioshi,” Gil interrupted, standing and moving towards him, “the one you saw, did he look like this?” She turned her phone around stiffly. Kioshi reached up to bring the phone a little closer and nodded.

“Yes, definitely him.”

“Fuck,” Gil said in a low voice, slumping down to sit on her bed. Her shoulders hunched in and she dropped her phone carelessly to the bed beside her. I think she was sad or disappointed. Her hair almost covered her face as she glanced at the floor.

“That’s my brother,” she admitted quietly. “He’s the reason I’m out here—I wanted to see what he was doing.”

“He’s in league with aliens!” Kilohana hissed.

“Yeah, apparently. He’s been… distant and weird for a little while now, since he’s been in college. Dad told me it was probably just because of college… I guess not.”

“How long?” Katherine pressed in a softer voice.

“About a year? I guess—it’s not even him anymore, is it?”

“No, probably not,” Katherine agreed.

“He’s one of those uh-uh—” I glanced up at the ceiling, trying to remember the words the andalite had used.

“Parasites,” Tyrel snorted.

“Controllers!” I blurted, then quickly lowered my voice. “Being controlled by one of the yeerk things.”

“We may be able to find out how much they know now,” Gil said, looking up and setting her hair behind her ear. “I could ask him questions, see what it knows? Maybe it’s not fully integrated yet or… whatever.”

“You have to b-be careful,” I admonished, “you don-don’t want to ask questions and g-give yourself away.”

“I’ll—I’ll try not to.”

“When was the last time you had a nightmare?” Katherine asked suddenly.

“That is… super random,” Kilohana snorted.

“You know where I live, girl, every night is a nightmare,” Tyrel groaned.

“No, Gil.”

“I don’t know—I had a weird dream last night,” Gil shrugged.

“I could use that, maybe ask about you? It’d be a good excuse to start talking to him. I could be worried about you, a nightmare you had, ask him about it?”

“I know a good way to get you started,” Gil continued. She leaned back on her bed almost like she was going to lie down. She reached out and pulled a small bag from near her pillow. As she sat back up she revealed a brown bag, smaller than an average backpack, shaped like a bear. She smiled down at it but her eyes didn’t smile—it was like the smiles I had taught myself to give people. Fake.

“You could tell him I lost my bag,” Gil offered, looking up at Katherine.

“No,” Katherine shook her head, “that’s too risky. He could come in here to look for it.”

“Maybe then… that I had lost my bag?”

“That’s—that might work, yeah.”

“See what his reaction is. I’d be—really upset if I ever lost it. See how he reacts.”

“Isn’t that thing you’re supposed to be at startin’?” Tyrel mumbled, doing something on his phone.

“Oh, yeah, let’s go. Just act… normal,” Katherine said with a shrug.

“W-wait,” I called as I stood, looking pointedly at my sister, “before we go I really n-need to know… Why d-did you call him out here t-to meet you?”

Katherine and Tyrel looked at each other. Tyrel smiled wide and fluttered his eyes at Katherine like he’d gotten something stuck in them, an eyelash maybe. Katherine scowled at him in return.

“I was… there’s this guy—we both know him—and uh, I just have been having problems with him. He’s said things and done things and I just—it worried me a little. I knew Tyrel had experience with dealing with those kids of things so I just… wanted to talk to him about it.”

“You couldn’t have done that over the phone?” Kilo asked curiously.

“I wanted—I wanted to have him there. He’s my friend.”

She was lying. Katherine could lie very well to our parents and they believed her but she could not always lie to me. She tried but I was usually able to tell. It didn’t mean I knew what the truth was but I knew what she said certainly wasn’t it.

“Well I kn-know you’re lying but I-I won’t tell a-anyone,” I sighed, making sure to roll my eyes very noticeably so she would see it.

“You just told us,” Gil snorted.

“I me-meant anyone else.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EVERETT CONTINUES

Katherine ended the conversation by turning off the music and opening the door. She ushered us all out and locked up behind us, leaving Tyrel alone in our cabin since he was obviously not supposed to be there.

The assembly was meeting a large outdoor amphitheater in the center of the campground. There were benches—incredibly uncomfortable and providing no support—for us to sit on. We were one of the last cabins to arrive and I was thankful for that. There were close to one hundred students ahead of us, plus chaperones, a few teachers and campground employees. Arriving when we did we had the option to sit in the far back—removed from most of the crowd—and it wouldn’t draw attention to ourselves. 

We all sat on one of the back benches, making sure we had an open exit to the campground behind us in case something went down. I reached up and grabbed onto my headphones just in case. The noise was pretty high but it was all in front of us and mostly just chatter between students, no loud music or electrical equipment. It was easier to tune out from one direction and one source.

I watched as Katherine took a long look around us. She was alert and on-top of things. That was good. Everything that had been going on was making me tired and I really did not want to have an episode here, especially with everything going on. When I get tired I am more likely to be upset by things, and with all the noise and my usual home routine interrupted—aside from the alien stuff of course—I was already closer to an upset than I would normally be.

From our place in the back I recognized Principal Kendrick as he took the stage. Next to him was a woman about my mother’s age from what I could see. She had short cropped blond hair. She wore jeans and a t-shirt with a logo of some kind on the left side of her chest. She had a walkie talkie and a rather large stopwatch.

“All right everyone, settle down,” Principal Kendrick ordered and for the most part people listened. “Thank you for getting out here and getting situated so efficiently. We’ve got a great group out here this weekend. We’ve got a lot of really fun events planned, some lectures, something for everyone. 

Our goal this weekend is to educate ourselves on how to prevent school violence—whether it be by standing up for someone when something isn’t right, by notifying the proper authorities when you see or hear something suspicious, and by being aware that the things you do can effect others so we all need to be kinder. 

I’d like to thank Ms.Burns and The Sharing for their help—without them this retreat wouldn’t exist. They’ve donated their time and effort to make this a great weekend. For those of you who don’t know, The Sharing is a local non-profit that does… well, a little bit of everything. They organize events, they offer financial assistance, they offer counciling, they even participate in some blood drives and other free clinics in the area. 

Before I pass things along to Ms.Burns I do want to address the commotion last night. It seems like some kids were setting off fireworks at an old construction site nearby. We’re not sure who these kids were—we hope it was none of you—but there are authorities looking into the matter. We do want to have your cooperation however as it does appear there is a rather severe chemical leak in that construction site. Law enforcement officers are worried that anyone in the area could suffer some contact issues like chemical burn and such, and are requesting your help. If you know anything please let someone here know. We want to make sure that everyone is safe and healthy, foremost, but also this was an illegal trespass. 

Thank you all again for being so well behaved and wonderful. Here’s Ms.Burns to give you a bit more information on what’s in store for you.” Principal Kendrick—as many people do—then started the applause himself. The sound left a ringing in my ears that was unpleasant.

Ms.Burns took the stage. I would like to stress that even without knowing what we knew, I don’t think any of us would have liked that woman. She was… off putting, even for someone like me. As she greeted the audience with a cheery disposition completely out of place for the surroundings, I pulled my headphones on. I neither needed nor wanted to hear what she had to say. I watched her pace back and forth and make strange gestures towards the audience.

Once more I couldn’t help but think of the construction site and of Tyrileon. I usually don’t feel comfortable around strangers but something about the alien was comforting—it was almost like I already knew her somehow. I understood death but somehow watching her die seemed unreal. I almost expected her to show up out of nowhere again, healthy and alive. I certainly would have welcomed the opportunity to ask her the myriad of questions I had building.

I glanced over at Katherine briefly. Her eyes were moving along the crowd and her face was still. I felt a little better for tuning out Ms.Burns as it was clear Katherine wasn’t paying attention to her either. Instead my sister seemed to be scanning the chaperones and other adults lined up outside the benches. I’m sure she was taking note of people or counting them, or something important. It was good that she was involved in the whole alien thing with us—I had faith that she would be a great asset.

I felt I needed to tell her that.

“Katherine,” I said, my volume not adjusted to the fact that I could not hear the world around me. “Katherine,” I repeated, louder, when she didn’t look at me.

She turned quickly at my second call and lifted her eyebrows. She held her hands in the air as if whatever she was going to do she had decided against. She was probably going to touch me. I’m glad she didn’t.

“You’re a great asset,” I offered, a great compliment. I turned away as soon as I knew she’d heard me.

It wasn’t long after that when the assembly ended. I felt rather then heard the applause all around me. I pressed my hands to my headphones tighter to try and concentrate on that versus the vibrating all around me. I knew camp would present me with challenges and I had prepared for them.

I tried to concentrate on the procedural steps taking at a crime scene—what came first? Who was contacted first? In what order did they usually arrive? What pictures were taken and when. How was evidence bagged and labeled?

It was usually very helpful. I do not have many physical stims but my crime scene analogues help get me through overwhelming input just the same.

Katherine motioned to me a few moments later to pull away my headphones.

“We’re in the back so let’s wait a while before we get up, it won’t look too suspicious because we’re at the end.” I glanced around at the crowd and then back to Katherine’s knees.

“Wh-where are we going?”

“Breakfast. Apparently they have some huge buffet thing over there,” she indicated the left of the assembly.

“I am starving,” Gil mumbled, looking fidgety as her knees bounced.

“Me too,” concurred Kilo.

“I’m sure there will still be plenty of food left,” Katherine assured, “I don’t want us to get stuck in the middle of a crowd—for a number of reasons.” I met Katherine’s eyes briefly. Oh, yes, I was at least two reasons. Maybe three.

“Did you see my brother?” Gil asked quietly, leaning forward and waving a few fingers to catch Katherine’s attention. “I couldn’t find him.”

“Crap, me either. I was trying to get a bead on how many of them I think there are,” Katherine clicked her tongue against the back of her teeth. “We can look better once we’re all seated for breakfast.”

“Incoming,” Kioshi said quietly, nodding down towards the assembly stage.

There were three chaperones in an almost triangle shape heading towards us. They wore big smiles and were waving excitedly. Rather than greeting us though it looked like they were waving us forward. The crowd was thinning out, maybe they were impatient. Katherine returned their waving with a single wave of her own. She pointed to me.

“We’re just waiting until the crowd thins out a little,” she explained once the chaperones were close enough that she didn’t have to yell, “he doesn’t like crowds.”

“Oh, right! Ok! Well don’t wait too long—you don’t want all the good stuff to be gone!” One of the chaperones squawked. 

“Oooh, the bacon,” Kilo whined.

“We won’t,” Katherine assured, frowning hard as the chaperones turned and left.

After a second the lot of us turned to look at Katherine. We were all apparently waiting for her permission to move. She was our chaperone after all. She sighed and nodded and we all slowly, cautiously, joined the mass of people getting food.

I frowned as we got closer to the tables. Happy, constantly smiling people in white shirts where dishing out large portions of food. The smiles never faltered and even I found that disconcerting and strange.

“Who b-brought all this f-food?” I asked Katherine.

“The Sharing provided it,” Katherine whispered back, frowning.

“Oh,” I muttered. 

“Yeah,” Katherine agreed.

As we neared the tables I began inspecting what food I could see. I didn’t pick anything up but I wanted to make sure I gave a good, educated look to everything offered to us. If The Sharing really had provided the food and they were run by aliens…

Unfortunately we were at the back of the line, most of the food had been tampered with just in handing out portions. There was very little that I could accurately judge based upon the food being presented as it was. Maybe that was part of the plan?

My eyes fell on the coolers, filled with various juices and water. There was something—something odd. There were no labels, no brands, nothing on those bottles. They still looked sealed and appropriately colored for what they contained, but they were all entirely un-labeled. It was just a selection of colored liquids in naked bottles. I shook my head.

“Don’t take a drink!” I hissed. I saw a few of my companions turn their heads slightly, indicating they heard me. I hoped they understood what I said—I didn’t want to risk repeating myself.

It seemed like I wasn’t the only one who was a little worried. While Kilo and Gil both filled plates with a variety of items, the rest of us only took a few things—but none of us took any of the bottled beverages. I’m sure no one else would have noticed—or if they did it wouldn’t have seemed odd enough. Nearing the end of the line I heard Katherine sigh a little.

“There’s coffee,” she announced, “I’m going to grab a cup—I need something. The rest of you find a table on the outskirts. I’ll join you in a minute.”

All of us—minus Kioshi who accompanied Katherine—left to find a table. Gil quickly indicated one on the very end, even somehow further away than the spacing between most other tables. Seated there our cabin would be in my line of sight in the distance if I put my back to the crowd and the food buffet. I did. Gil sat across from me.

“I’d be careful about—” I started, but Gil and Kilo began eating anyway. I glanced down at the few items I had grabbed so it didn’t look to weird that I’d gotten nothing. I had a few pieces of fruit. The orange in particular looked very good. I picked it up and rolled it around in my hands, studying it carefully. I saw no holes or marks to suggest it had been poisoned—but I did see a sticker still on there from transport. That meant it hadn’t been washed. I made my best face-of-disgust and carefully began to peel the fruit.

I got rather caught up in peeling the orange and time got away from me. Rather suddenly Katherine and Kioshi were back, almost out of breath. They sat down and Katherine fixed the table with a wide-eyed look.

“Nobody. Eat. Anything.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EVERETT CONTINUES

“Uhm, what?” Kilo said, his next mouthful stopping before it passed his lips. Next to him Gil frowned and spit out what she had been in the process of chewing—none-too carefully. I made another face-of-disgust.

“A uh—that little voice in my head told me not to,” Katherine tried to clarify. It took me a second to realize she must have been talking about Tyrel. Voice in her head? That was a good way to describe the way in which we talked to each other as owls—and how the andalite had talked to us. Katherine’s conscious—what people commonly refer to as a little voice in their head—would have nothing to do with eating breakfast. It had to be Tyrel.

“I’ll explain more later,” Katherine continued in a low voice, “Ms.Burns is on her way over.”

“What happened to your hand?” Kilo asked quickly, pointing. I followed his finger to Katherine’s hand. It was red and very irritated.

“I burned it getting coffee when the uh—voice—I got startled, lost my concentration,” Katherine waved her uninjured hand at the air. “Ms.Burns is coming to check on it. We’ll talk later.”

“Why did you burn your hand?” Gil pressed, wiping her mouth with a napkin.

“I said I’ll explain later,” Katherine said in a growly voice.

“Incoming,” Kilo said looking quickly back down at his plate.

“Ok let’s see that hand!” Ms.Burns yipped, clapping her hands together as she approached. She had two chaperones with her—one with a small first aid kit and the other with a bag of ice. They all wore white, high-collared shirts that said The Sharing on them.

“It’s fine, really,” Katherine’s voice was steady, “I have it covered.”

“Well I’d just feel so much better if we could take a look,” Ms.Burns pressed in her fake-happy-too-loud voice. The two chaperones just stood next to her, looking uncomfortable and out of place.

“I’ve got it,” Katherine snipped, “I’m more qualified than any of you to look at it.”

“Well, you’re in our care so we—”

“Can I see your PHD?” Katherine nearly barked, voice low but dangerous. I watched Ms.Burn’s eyebrows lift and she gave Katherine a very clearly surprised look.

“Well, take this ice at the very least so I can feel better knowing we tried,” Ms.Burns took the offered ice from the chaperone and set it on the table next to Katherine. I was worried my sister might attack the woman but luckily Ms.Burns’ attention turned across the table. Her eyes landed on Gil’s rejected, chewed up mush of breakfast. She frowned.

“Everything ok, dear?” 

“Oh? Uh.. yeah I um—thought I saw a bug,” Gil lied. Her eyes darted quickly to the side as Ms.Burns fixed her with a look, “I might have been wrong.”

“Well like I told Katherine here, the medical tent is just over there. If you’re not feeling good—and if your hand needs a little extra TLC—you know where to find us.” The woman paused, eyeing Gil for a moment.

“What’s your name?” Ms.Burns pressed, still fake-pleasant.

“G-gillete?”

“What’s your last name, Gil?”

“Renoir?”

“I knew it! You’re Tom’s little sister! I’d recognize that nose anywhere!” Ms.Burns somehow got fake-happier and fake-louder. She took a few steps around the table and clapped a hand on Gil’s shoulder.

“You’re not allowed to touch the students without their permission,” Katherine said quickly and Ms.Burns pulled her hand away.

“Well, I hope you managed to drink more coffee than you spilled because someone needs it!” Ms.Burns covered, clapping her hands together. “Hopefully you’ll all be a little more awake and ready for our games. See you soon!”

A silence fell over the table as the woman walked off. We all looked at one another quietly, each trying to assess in our own minds what just happened. I still believe we would have disliked Ms.Burns regardless of our extraterrestrial friend.

Then, out of nowhere…

[Do not eat or drink anything! Don’t—eat or… Drink… Anything! Don’t… eat or drink anything! Don’t…!] 

A voice was suddenly in my head, yelling and almost out of breath—if that was possible without breath. It was obviously Tyrel and he was frantic. I reached up to cover my ears but hesitated upon realizing it wouldn’t block out his voice. Katherine quickly stood up.

“Let’s get back to the cabin,” she declared, looking pointedly at me. Judging by their faces and contorted expressions I assumed everyone else had heard Tyrel as well. They didn’t need telling twice and we were all on our feet.

“K-katherine what’s g-going on?” I asked, she was walking stiffly and had a strange expression on her face. There was something else going on.

“We can talk about it when we get back to the cabin,” she said shortly, never stopping to look at me.

“Anybody want a granola bar?” Gil offered, digging into her bag. Kilo was the only one interested.

“Hmm?” Katherine said suddenly, stopping where she was. We all took a few more steps forward before turning to look at her.

“Uh, what?” I asked, watching as Katherine’s hands closed into fists and then re-opened. I tilted my head to one side. 

“No it—we’ll talk at the cabin. We’ll talk about it at the cabin,” Katherine repeated, suddenly walking forward again and at a slightly faster pace. I frowned and exchanged a strange look with Kioshi. We started after her.

“Talk about what? We didn’t say anything?” Gil pressed.

“I know but—the cabin, we’ll talk there, Everett needs a quiet place to calm down,” Katherine provided, walking a little faster still.

“No I don’t?” I said in confusion. “I feel fine.”

“The. Cabin.” Katherine huffed.

The rest of the walk was in relative silence. Katherine’s hands shook a little as she unlocked the cabin and hurriedly waved us all inside. Kioshi moved quickly through us and to his bunk where he began fishing around in one of his bags—for the button the andalite had given him I imagined. I ignored Kioshi and turned to ask Katherine what was going on but stopped short.

Katherine was hopping from one leg to the other, kicking her legs out and shaking her pants. I heard the others turn and watch her along with me. For a moment we didn’t do anything.

“Uhm, Katherine?” Kilohana snickered.

“Pants! Check pants now!” Katherine hissed, calming a little. Confused we all did as we were told. A light yelp from Kilo caught my attention and I looked over. Kilo was staring at something on his left ankle. He lifted his hand as if to swat at it.

[Oh fu--] Tyrel’s voice reached us just as Kilohana swung.

“Ahh!” Katherine yelped.

“Ahh!” Kilo agreed, quickly removing his shirt and checking himself over frantically.

“What!?” Gil shouted.

“It’s Tyrel—nobody move—it’s Tyrel! He’s a spider!”

[Did anybody get… the plate numbers… on that truck?] Tyrel’s voice was in my head again, groggy and tired.

I crouched down over to where Kilo had sent Tyrel flying. A sizeable wolf spider was lying on its back. Curiously I stuck out a finger and Tyrel climbed into my hand.

“Wow,” I whispered.

[Hey man,] Tyrel wiggled a palp in my direction.

“See if you can acquire the spider!” Gil suddenly shouted, moving towards me. I quickly leaned away and she pointed to my hand.

“I think you’d probably have to just touch another animal,” Kilo said with a shrug, pulling his shirt back on.

“Worth a t-try,” I suggested. With spider!Tyrel in my hand I concentrated on the bug like I had done with the owl in the construction site. I thought about spiders in general but mostly about how people think they’re creepy and they really aren’t. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting to feel—I honestly didn’t remember feeling anything when I acquired the owl. After a second I opened my eyes and shrugged.

“I guess it w-worked?” I placed Tyrel on the floor gently and he scurried off. I watched as he crawled under the robe discarded and crumpled up on the floor near Katherine’s bed.

“Try it,” Gil prompted, nodding at me vigorously.

I closed my eyes and thought about the spider. I didn’t know too much about spiders, aside from that they had a really bad reputation that they were entirely undeserving of. They did a lot of good and people just thought they were scary. I thought about all those legs and eyes. Suddenly it felt like the whole room was spinning and shrinking.

I quickly opened my eyes—and nothing had happened. I frowned.

“I tried b-but I don’t think it w-worked.”

“I bet we have to really touch the animals, not one of us in morph,” Kilohana repeated, much more sure of himself this time.

“We do-don’t know that for sure,” I debated, “Tyrileon s-said there were a lot of r-rules. W-we don’t know how it works, rea-really.”

“Trial and error,” Gil mumbled, flopping onto her bed.

“More importantly,” Tyrel said from the floor of the room.

I looked quickly over to find him on his hands and knees. He was once again himself but his leg was through one of the robe’s sleeves. He was taking great care to hide his bare body from us in the awkwardly positioned robe. I was glad for it.

“More importantly,” he repeated, managing to tuck himself in the corner between the wall and Katherine’s bed to adjust the robe, “did anybody eat anything?”

“Yes,” Kilo muttered, pointing at Gil and then himself.

“Well shit,” Tyrel sighed.

“W-what’s going on?” I asked defeatedly. “I’m v-very confused.”

“While you all were at that meetin’, I morphed a spider for some recon,” Tyrel started. “I overheard some folks talkin’ about an influx or somethin’ that’s supposed to be happenin’ two hours after breakfast. They said they’re gonna try and blame it on food poisoning or somethin’.”

“Well, what does that mean?” Kilo asked.

“Hell if I know,” Tyrel shrugged. “Anybody know an Iniss?”

“A who?” Kioshi piped up.

“Iniss?” Tyrel repeated. Nobody answered.

“Sounds a little like Esplin,” Gil provided, “which is—I guess—my brother’s new name or something?”

“None of that makes any sense,” Kioshi grumbled, rubbing at his head, “this is all so confusion.”

“When Tyrel found out he started yelling not to eat anything, that’s when I spilled the coffee on my hand,” Katherine glanced down at the offending appendage. It was a little red but seemed mostly fine.

“If the yeerks are planning something then we need to clear out this campground,” Gil said confidently, “we could call a bomb scare? That would get us all out, right?”

“I don’t know,” Katherine sounded apprehensive. I decided to back her up.

“I s-saw cops at the construction site,” I shook my head. “If we-we call a bomb scare they m-might just send those.”

“As the only black man in this little group I will third no bomb threat. I don’t wanna know how that might go down out here in the country,” Tyrel shuddered.

“What about the medical tent?” Kioshi offered, looking at Katherine. “They really wanted you to go for your hand.”

“They mentioned it to Gil too at the table,” Katherine agreed. “Talking about food poisoning and stuff. It’s a good bet. How do you guys feel about arson?”

“Wait, why would they try and get you to go before you’d eaten?” Kilohana interrupted, sitting on Kioshi’s bed along with him.

“They could h-have poisoned the food so tha-at people have to go to the tent?” I tried.

“That would make sense,” Katherine sat down next to Tyrel on her own bed. “If they—these yeerks—if they need hosts that means they probably can’t survive here without them. If they need hosts that means they probably won’t go far from where the hosts are.”

“Y-yeerk pool,” I said suddenly, “Kioshi h-heard them talking about a y-yeerk pool! Th-there has to be one in th-the medical tent.”

“The influx is more of them—more controllers,” Gil whispered quietly. 

The conversation was halted as Tyrel and Katherine began shaking their left hands in the air. It looked like maybe they had touched something hot and were reacting to the pain. They looked at each other.

“You too?” Tyrel whispered. Katherine nodded.

“What?” Gil pressed.

“A—a tingling in my left hand, like it’s gone to sleep?” Katherine attempted to describe the sensation. She pressed at her left palm with her right hand, making a small circle there. Tyrel did the same thing, frowning.

“T-tingling?” I moved a little closer as did the others. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” Katherine shook her head, still tracing what I guessed was the pattern of tingling in her hand.

“Nobody else feels it?” Tyrel whined, then gasped as he pressed hard at his left palm. “It’s like there’s something in my hand!” 

Katherine pressed on her palm as well and nodded in agreement. They both had wide eyes, slightly parted mouths and flaring nostrils. I think they were scared. 

“Kioshi, do you still have that button?” Katherine inquired. “From the andalite?”

Kioshi reached into his back pocket and pulled out the button Tyrileon had given him. He met eyes with Katherine and slowly handed it over. Katherine placed it in her left palm and nodded.

“It’s the same size and shape,” she handed the button back to the eager Kioshi. “Any of you feel anything?”

I looked at Gil and Kilohana as they met eyes and then began pressing at their own palms. I did the same. It was jarring to suddenly feel something inside my own hand. It didn’t hurt but just like morphing it felt like it should have.

I watched as everyone massaged their hands and wondered if perhaps it was the hand we had all touched the box with. I had used my left hand, and Katherine had too. I tried to recall the previous night and I could—very well in fact—but who put what hand where was a detail I couldn’t seem to recall. It was dark, there was a lot going on and I hadn’t thought it was important at the time. It was a bit disappointing that I couldn’t remember.

The tingling began in my hand. It was jarring. It was unpleasant. I didn’t like it. It was one of those sensations that was suddenly too much and too quick. I made a soft noise of discomfort and tried very hard to keep my cool. There was so much going on, so much new information and this tingling sensation was busy and constant. It was like the static for a TV channel we didn’t get but in my hand. 

Katherine caught my attention and waved for me to sit next to her. Holding my hand nervously I did so and she immediately took my left wrist. She gently pressed a nail into my skin and let me concentrate on that. It was easier to deal and process with a single point of concentration.

“I could… cut them out?” Katherine offered to the group at large.

“Kioshi, didn’t that alien say to protect that thing?” Tyrel questioned.

“The andalite,” Kioshi clarified, nodding, “yes, she did.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be removin’ ours just yet, girl.”

“We don’t know what they do,” Kilo held his hand up to the sky and tried to look harder. “They could be helpful?”

“There are way too many questions right now,” Gil whined, shaking her head. “We need to start getting some answers and soon.”

“Well we’re not gonna get any just sittin’ here talking to ourselves,” Tyrel pressed. “I was able to find that spider easy. I think we all need to get small and inconspicuous.”

“For recon?” Kilo said, sounding a little more excited.

“Yeah, for recon. We need to find out what’s goin’ on in that medical tent without any of us going to that medical tent.” Tyrel glanced at the group. 

I nodded to Katherine and pulled my hand away from her. I moved back to my own bed and found that I agreed with Tyrel.

“I’m sure there are lots of other insects or like… a snake or somethin’,” Tyrel continued.

“A snake?” Gil sneered.

“Well, somethin’ small that ain’t gonna draw attention. We can’t jus’ go into the medical tent as a bunch o’ owls!”

“The cat,” Katherine said and dove for her bag. She began fishing around amongst her disorganized packing. She pulled out another can of tuna and approached the window. 

“The campground cat, maybe we can get it to come pay us a visit now,” she placed the open can in the window and frowned at it.

I decided I wanted to try smaller—like Tyrel. I began searching around the wood cabin for a spider like he’d gotten. I knew there had to be one close by. I vaguely heard the others talking behind me but I wasn’t interested in them and their conversation anymore—no, I was interested in spiders.

Only a few moments after moving to my hands and knees on the floor I found one. It resembled the one Tyrel had been and it was low on the wall. I’d never been afraid of spiders and so it took very little motivation to move closer and reach out for it. My finger made contact but it frightened the spider and she dashed forward a little to get away from me.

I frowned. I gently placed my other hand on the wall in front of her and touched her again. This time when she darted forward she crawled into my hand. Very carefully I cupped my fingers around her and concentrated on acquiring her. I tried to pay attention to see if I could feel anything different but the only thing I could feel was the still-tingling sensation in my hand.

After a second I picked up one of my empty pill bottles. With extreme caution I slid the spider into the pill bottle and gently rested the top on it.

“Got it,” I announced to the cabin, turning to face my companions triumphantly. “I got a s-spider like Tyrel.” I held out the bottle. “Where is Kilohan-na?”

“Went to see if he could find something else,” Kioshi offered as he held out his hand for the spider. I handed her over.

I moved back to my bed as the group continued to talk, passing around the spider. I moved towards the wall and closed my eyes. I thought once again about the spider but this time I thought about becoming the spider.

The shrinking happened first just as I thought it had earlier. Within seconds I was enshrouded in the darkness of my clothing. I wasn’t bothered by the dark, not anymore. I kept shrinking and shrinking until I was the size of the spider. The spider had seemed kind of big—for a spider—but I realized now just how small that really was. I had a second to consider stopping the process to measure myself when I went blind.

It was startling to suddenly lose my sight but knowing what I was doing it was a little easier to deal with. When my eyesight came back it was… different. It was as if something was obscuring my eyes. I reached up to brush away whatever was in front of me but nothing happened. It dawned on me very slowly that I was looking at my own hair from the back of my head. Spiders, as I remembered just then, had an array of eyes which would let them see behind themselves.

Next I felt an almost itching in my mouth. It started in the corners of my mouth like when I made a humming sound and my lips itched. The corners of my mouth suddenly exploded and two large, hairy palps grew from the corners of my mouth. I felt them with my tongue from inside my mouth as they moved and settled along my jawline. I stopped exploring the inside of my mouth as other changes began there.

I leaned forward as my back began to change and my body became segmented. It wasn’t quite like the body of an ant or another insect like that, but certainly more segmented than a human body. Feeling very wobbly on just four legs my abdomen produced more limbs. 

My skin became darker and my head became flat and hat-shaped. All over my body my hairs began to wiggle and grow and from my dark skin new hairs popped up all over. The hair soon covered all of my body and that’s when it hit me—the hairs… the sensations.

It was too much! It was so much! Everything was touching me and I could touch everything. I felt a breeze; I felt the cold; I felt my clothing all around me, touching me and trapping me. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t figure out how to cope—I was a spider!

Then, suddenly, I was a spider. 

My own mind was gone and in its place was that of a spider. I was in the dark and it was good. It was quiet, it was still and it was very good. I was not hungry and I was not injured. I was not being pursued. I was safe and happy.

I considered very deeply simply settling down and making my home in that darkness. I could feel fresh air from a few places nearby which meant I was not trapped—I could escape in a variety of ways. This also meant I could make multiple webs and reach them all so very easily. This did seem like an ideal spot to make a home. Eggs could be stored and would hatch safely here too.

Yes. I was home and I was safe and comfortable.

Safe. Comfortable.

Those words rang in my mind until I began to remember just what those words meant. Safe and comfortable was in my own bed—at home—with the TV on nearby but very quiet. I knew Katherine was in her room across the hall and that mom and dad were not far.

I was me!

Coming back to myself I was able to hold on to the spider’s comfort in this environment and in her own body. Those hairs were her sight—her main sense and the way she viewed her world. From her perspective it was not overwhelming and it was not too much. It was perfect.

‘Thank you,’ I thought at the spider, ‘you have a marvelous coping mechanism.’

Feeling now one hundred percent in control I moved forward. I followed the nearest breeze until I could see a little light in front of me. My eyes were very good at seeing light and shadow though finer details were not so good.

I stepped cautiously out of the shadows and into the cabin. I could see the floor in front of me very clearly. I could see—a the same time—my sleeve behind me. My clothing looked like a gigantic playground or sand dune. 

In front of me I saw movement, slow and steady and I tried to focus my spider eyes on it. It was Tyrel! I could see him under Katherine’s bed, moving his fingers. The details were not wonderful but I could see enough to know it was him… and he was hiding under Katherine’s bed?

How long was I morphing for?

[Tyrel? Wh-what are you doing under there?] I asked him. 

“Kilohana said there was a patrol comin’,” Tyrel responded. His voice was loud but I could tell he was whispering. I was excited that my spider sense of hearing was good enough to make out his words.

I moved towards him.

[Is everyth-hing ok?] I pressed as I slowed near his face. He scooted a finger towards me and waved in greeting.

“Seems like it? Kilo is outside with Gil tryin’ to get that cat. Your sister is puttin’ Kioshi—who’s an owl—outside right now.”

[How—how long have I been like this?]

“Oh don’t worry lil’man, maybe five minutes,” Tyrel smiled wide. “It don’t take long for things to go to shit yanno.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KILOHANA

My name is Kilohana and that’s about all I can tell you. I have to keep things pretty secretive for now because everyone’s life depends on it—yeah, even yours. Hopefully someday—hopefully soon—that will change, but for now you just have to believe me. It’s a tall order but you need to know what I know.

It was starting to get hard to keep track of everyone—and I was really trying! Kioshi had taken off to do some scouting, I had Gil in my lap—she was a cat—and I could see Katherine across from me in the cabin on her own bed. Everett and Tyrel were there somewhere but I couldn’t see them. That either meant they were spiders or hiding…

Man! What a way to start a Saturday.

As if that wasn’t weird enough suddenly Kioshi’s voice was in my head. I could still hear his accent and the way he paced his words even though I wasn’t really ‘hearing’ anything. I wondered if I would ever get used to thought speak.

[I can see inside the tent! There are drums marked… hazard—hazard… biohazard! That’s it. Yes. There are big drums marked biohazard. I can see four but do not know how many more there are. I don’t know what is in them but I am certain it is bad.

Most of the other students are in a large field. I can see a few patrols—three of them—with a few adults in each of them. They are keeping a good eye on the campground.

The medical tent is surrounded by buildings—I am not sure if that will help us. It backs up to a store, a cabin and another building.

Should I get a closer look?]

Kioshi was right—none of that sounded good. I was torn between really wanting to know what was going down in that tent and really not wanting to know at all. Though since I had eaten some of the breakfast I was lucky that I did know… otherwise I might have walked right in and been yeerked.

“Well, that’s not good.” I could hear Tyrel’s voice from near Katherine’s bed. That meant he wasn’t in a morph. I craned my head to try and see under her bed but couldn’t find him.

“It’s gotta be the yeerk pool,” Katherine said as she shook her head. Have you ever heard the expression that the gears are turning in someone’s head? Well, I could see it happening with Katherine. I could tell she was already trying to put pieces together and find a way to get us out of this mess. We were lucky she was with us on this.

I felt like I wasn’t doing enough, sitting and listening. I gave Gil one last scratch behind the ear and set her down. I had acquired the same cat and as Gil padded off I decided to try and morph it as well. 

I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate.

I figured it would be an easy morph. I had always kind of liked cats—they were graceful and sure of themselves but also misunderstood and amazing hunters. I knew more about cats than about spiders or owls and had more experience with them too. I couldn’t have one of my own though because my grandma wasn’t a big fan.

I lived with her now, had for a year or so. I used to live with my uncle—he raised me after my parents died—but when he got married I was kind of the third wheel. It wasn’t all tragic, not really, just one of those things. He took care of me and I wasn’t neglected or anything but I always had that nagging that he wasn’t my real dad. I didn’t remember my real parents as they’d died when I was just a baby, but I could tell my uncle wasn’t them… just something I knew, yanno? His wife and I never really saw eye-to-eye. She was nice enough but I think she wanted her own kids and I was kind of in the way. So we talked about it and I got shipped off to live with my grandma in the US.

My train of thought derailed and all I could think about was how much my grandma would protest me being a cat. I don’t think she’d have worried about anything else—not even the gross morphing—I think she just would have told me to get out. ‘No cats,’ I could hear her shout, ‘not in my house!’

I shook my head and decided to forgo morphing—for now.

[I think I should go scout too,] Gil said as she leapt up onto her bed. [I feel like I can do more as a cat than he can as an owl.]

[That m-might be a good idea,] Everett agreed, [and you m-might not stick out as much.]

[At the very least I’m not nocturnal, owls are all nocturnal.]

“And just how do you know that?” Tyrel grumbled from under the bed. I still couldn’t see him. 

[You don’t know what I study,] Gil snapped back playfully.

“I don’t know what you study? You sure about that… customer?”

My attention was snagged away from the conversation by Katherine. She had been searching in her bag and dumped a ton of stuff out on her bed. I watched as she searched through the objects curiously. I was about to ask what she was looking for when she found it—a small silk bag, like the one headphones come in.

She pulled the small button out of her pocket. The button was this tiny little… button that the dying andalite had given Kioshi. None of us had any idea what it was but with the way our hands had hurt earlier we may find out. All we knew was that it was important and we couldn’t lose it. I smiled a little was Katherine wiggled and pushed and eventually got the button into the pouch.

[Well, at the very least as a cat I can watch Kioshi’s back,] Gil said pointedly.

[Would the yeerks know owls are nocturnal?] Kioshi pondered.

[I dunno, but they seem to have at least some of the knowledge of their hosts. None of them are out there like idiots, they all blend in really well,] Gil paused to lick her paw. If I didn’t know any better—and if I couldn’t hear her—I would have thought she was just another cat!

I turned back to Katherine as she held the pouch in front of her to inspect it. She nodded and almost smiled, then she made a couple very animated expressions, turning her head a little. I had no idea what she was doing. She frowned and did it again.

“… you know, for the button thing?” She said quietly.

[What d-did you say, Katherine?]

“I was uh—trying to talk to Kioshi?” Katherine tilted her head down towards the floor.

[Kioshi, d-did you hear K-katherine?] 

[… no.]

[K-katherine he di-didn’t hear you.]

“But I heard him? When I was an owl I—” Katherine’s eyes grew wide, “ooh.”

“Oooh, that explains a lot,” Tyrel mumbled, still under the bed.

“Yeah, yeah it does,” Katherine agreed. “So we can hear each other all the time but we can only talk to each other when we’re morphed.”

“That kinda complicates things too,” Tyrel stuck his head out from under the bed.

“We should all learn Morse Code!” I suggested.

“Look I already hafta learn how to be animals, I ain’t got time to learn Morse Code too!” Tyrel growled.

“Everett, tell Kioshi I have a way for him to carry his button,” Katherine interrupted.

[Ki-kioshi, Katherine says she has a way for you to carry the button.]

“They’re gonna notice an owl with a pouch, yanno,” Tyrel sighed, propping his chin onto his hand.

“Maybe, maybe not. They’d have to notice the owl first and if they do we might have other problems, pouch or no pouch,” Katherine glanced down at Tyrel like it was commonplace to talk to the person under you bed.

My knees began to bounce. I wished I’d been able to morph the cat earlier…

[Do we think that is really necessary?] Kioshi questioned.

“Plus it would be easier than putting it on a cat—the cat doesn’t wear a collar. If the cat suddenly showed up with a collar it would be super suspicious.”

[I’m going to do a sweep,] Kioshi reported back. He sounded a little tense. Katherine nodded and Tyrel sighed.

“He can’t see—Everett, tell Kioshi to go ahead,” Tyrel mumbled.

As Everett conveyed the message I glanced down at my phone. We had gotten word from Tyrel that things were supposed to start going bad two hours after breakfast—and we had about thirty minutes until then. I put a hand on my stomach and frowned. I felt fine… but I still had half an hour. I tried to keep a positive attitude as often as possible but I felt fear starting to creep in. What was going to happen to me? Was I already yeerked and didn’t know it?!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KILOHANA CONTINUES

[Whatever we are planning we have to do it soon,] Kioshi reported back and even his thought speak sounded breathless. [They say they are ready to go inside the tent.]

[K-Katherine wants to know if-f there are IV b-bags in the tent?] Everett asked as Katherine stared at where she imagined he was.

[I have no idea. I only got a little view inside and now it is closed.]

“Y’know, I don’t have a problem bein’ a distraction,” Tyrel said, frowning, “I’m not supposed to be out here anyway.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” I questioned, hopping down from my bunk and crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m not sure it’ll be a big enough distraction. Plus we saw some cops at the crash site so at least some of them are yeerked… no telling if you’ll be caught by a regular cop or a Controller. It seems way too dangerous.”

[Kilo and I could go—as cats—and start a fight or something?] Gil piped up from where she was lounging.

“Would that be big enough though?” Not that I was against the idea—in fact it might be kind of fun to cause some chaos.

[We-we could start a f-fire?]

“Are we up for some arson?” Katherine almost seemed excited.

“I think we could definitely start some fires around the tent, maybe some electrical ones, make it look like an accident? It wouldn’t be too hard I don’t think,” I shrugged. I’d started a few dumpster fires but nothing too crazy—it had all been contained.

[I c-could do it,] Everett started again, [with s-some time. I would ne-need to know what the pl-place looks like but I-I could do it.]

I didn’t really want to press about why Everett was so sure he could start a fire but I was really curious. There was a lot that could go wrong but I couldn’t help but latch on to how bad it would be for the yeerks.

“Ok—this might be something,” Katherine said, standing and starting to pace a little. “If we can get Everett into the shop and to the coffee machine—I saw one yesterday—then he can start us an ‘electrical fire’,” Katherine said with air quotes. “We could try and get a couple going even, with the right distraction, and all it would take is one stray ember to light up that tent. Even if it doesn’t all burn to ash it would be enough to stall the plan—maybe even expose whatever is inside to everyone here!”

“Not to interrupt your stroke of genius,” Tyrel sighed, “but I’m a bit concerned about startin’ fires without really knowin’ what’s in there.”

“It’s the yeerk pool, you heard Kioshi. Liquid.”

“Liquid. Ignites. Sometimes.” Tyrel said slowly. “Plus we gotta worry about people bein’ inside and near that tent—if it does blow up.”

“I have a feeling anyone in or near that tent is already a Controller.”

[I think every adult here is already a Controller,] Kioshi added, having been kept up-to-date on the conversation by Everett.

Tyrel slid a little further out from under the bed. He looked like he was ready to launch into a rant about something. I was super curious to know what he was going to say—he looked more serious than I had yet seen him. However his words were interrupted and he immediately gasped, grabbing his left hand. His features wrenched up in pain and just as I was sure he was going to shout—

POP

With an audible pop a small, round, black button appeared in his hand. It was almost identical to the one Kioshi had gotten from the andalite. I lifted my eyebrows.

“Uhm,” Tyrel muttered, rolling the thing around in his hands, “it’s got my name on it.”

“It… what?” Katherine was clearly concerned. She reached down and took the offered button. I moved closer to read over her shoulder. Sure enough in a scratchy, etched-in script was TYREL LEROY JENKINS.

I laughed. I couldn’t help it!

“Your name is Tyrel Leroy Jenkins?”

“Yeah, what of it?” Tyrel snarled.

“It’s—it’s just… weird,” I tried, backpedaling though I was still giggling in spite of myself.

“This whole fuckin’ thing has been weird! Leave my name outta it!”

“Fair enough,” I nodded and moved back to sit on Kioshi’s bunk. I hoped he wouldn’t mind.

Katherine compared the two buttons carefully. She tried to look for places to press or latches or something but didn’t see anything. She squeezed Tyrel’s as if legitimately trying to push it but nothing happened. She passed it back down to him.

“Everett, ask Kioshi for the exact layout of the medical tent.”

[In-inside or ou-outside?]

“Both.”

[Kioshi, Katherine wa-wants to know the l-layout of the med tent. Sh-she wants inside a-and outside.]

There was a long moment of silence. I didn’t like it—I don’t think any of us did. Kioshi had been responding quickly but now there was nothing. I saw Katherine exchange the same worried look with Tyrel.

[Do you all know Gil is out here?] Kioshi’s voice finally hit our minds. He was not happy. 

As his words registered we all suddenly looked towards Gil’s bed. It was just as Kioshi said—she wasn’t there. There was no cat and no girl. I glanced towards the open window I’d crawled through just moments ago and realized it would have been super easy for her to have reached it and jumped out without alerting any of us. I heard Katherine groan loudly.

[--whole thing is fucked!] Kioshi shouted, and though we missed the beginning of his statement I think we all got what he was saying. [We need to start taking this more seriously, treating this with more logic now or we are going to be in for a lot of trouble later. I agree that something needs to be done quickly but if we just start acting like idiots we are quickly going to be caught! Gil, we need to go back to the cabin.]

[But what about--] And there was Gil, sounding a little put-out at Kioshi’s shouting but not by much.

[LET’SJUSTGETBACKTOTHECABIN!] Kioshi yelled and I flinched. It was somehow loud even though it still made no real sound to speak of.

“Everett, tell her if she doesn’t come back I will go out there and scruff her myself,” Katherine crossed her arms over her chest.

[G-gil, Katherine says c-come back now or sh-she will come get y-you.]

There was another pause. I held my breath. It was exciting, sure, but at the same time I understood Kioshi’s worry. If we did anything to give ourselves away now we might be in serious trouble. We only knew a little bit about our enemy and our situation and there was no use in taking huge risks. 

[We’re coming back,] Kioshi said with a sigh at last.

“Good. We’ll all demorph and be human for a little bit. We need to figure out what we’re going to do—and fast.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KILOHANA CONTINUES

A few moments later and we were all back together inside the cabin. We were also all human again which was a strange thing to know needed mentioning. Everett sat on his bed and Gil sat on hers. Katherine was standing near the door almost like a guard and Tyrel still laid on his stomach on the floor under her bed, though he’d been supplied with a blanket and pillow to make it more comfortable. Kioshi was seated on his bottom bunk and I took up a stance between my bunk-bed and Gil’s bed, my shoulder next to the window.

It was time to solidify a plan and put it to those yeerks.

“We need to distract the people inside the store first,” I said as I closed the window at my shoulder. “I think two birds fighting could do that. It wouldn’t be as risky as two cats—since it’s easier to tell it’d be the same cat than the same bird.”

“Didn’t we all acquire different owls?” Gil pressed. I shrugged.

“There were a few but I don’t remember how many and I don’t remember which one I touched. Do you?”

“Good point,” Gil conceded.

“Everett you’re pretty sure you can do this?” Katherine pressed.

“Ye-yes,” Everett nodded, “pretty s-sure. I still ha-have to see what it l-looks like inside the s-store, but I think I c-can do it. I mean I can f-for sure start the f-fire but I d-don’t know if I can m-make it look like a-an accident. When th-they investigate th-that’s the first th-thing they’ll look f-for.”

“Well that won’t be today and we can worry about a week from now a week from now. We just need a fire today, in the next twenty minutes.”

“I like Kilo’s idea,” Tyrel pointed at me from the floor, “workin’ at Waffle House we get all kindsa bull shit. I know for sure a bird—even just one—is gonna start a panic.” 

“We could always just put a fork in the microwave,” Gil suggested with a grin.

“Way too ob-bvious,” Everett reprimanded.

“All right, Tyrel you be our distraction-owl. Nobody is going to be looking for you so we don’t have to worry about accounting for where you are. Everett and I will go to the store since I can’t send him alone for a host of reasons. Gil, Kioshi and Kilo why don’t you guys go to the bag races. That way we look like we’re just keeping up appearances and from there you can all keep an eye on the other students, maybe stall them if we can’t get our fire going.”

“Uhm—don’t forget that Gil and I ate breakfast,” I said with a frown, “I’m still a bit worried about what’s going to happen. I feel fine now but we don’t know what they did or what they’re really up to. If something happens to Gil and I out there I don’t think Kioshi will be able to do much alone.”

“Hmmm,” Katherine nodded, taking this into account. “Then the three of you stay in the cabin. If anyone comes by looking for us you guys can say you lost track of time or something and that Everett and I went to the store first.” She was sure good at strategy. “So what do we need at the convenience store?”

“Convenience items,” Everett supplied.

“Duct tape!” Tyrel yipped from the floor.

“You want me t-to get you so-something while y-you’re an owl a-and I’m trying to s-start a fire?”

“Always need duct tape,” Tyrel nodded with a small smirk.

“I think it’s a solid plan!” I said enthusiastically, grinning. “I’d love to help out but… I’ll just be here on standby in case you need me.” 

“We just can’t risk something going awry with you and Gil,” Katherine said sympathetically. I nodded. I understood even if I didn’t really like it. 

Tyrel pulled himself out from under the bed. He handed his button to Katherine. He pointed at it.

“I pushed it,” he said looking at all of us slowly, “and in my head I heard my own voice. It—I—said all the forms I’ve gotten so far.”

“That’s… weird…” I muttered.

“Such an understatement,” Kioshi sighed.

“Everyone clear on the plan?” Katherine asked as she waved Everett over. We all nodded. “Good. Stick to it. Cross your fingers we can outsmart some yeerks.”

She and Everett quickly stepped out of the cabin, never opening the door more than they needed to help keep Tyrel shielded. Tyrel put his back to us and started the morph.

Watching the feathers start to appear was kind of pretty. They looked like ink spreading all over Tyrel’s dark skin, and the transition from ink to 3D was enthralling. I felt my own body start to itch as the feathers spread and lifted and changed color. I remembered what it had felt like—we were super lucky morphing didn’t hurt. I’m not sure if I would still be able to do it if we actually felt what was happening. The tingling and kind of numb sensation was weird but it wasn’t really bad—I could deal with that, especially if I got to fly afterwards.

Ok, on second though… flying might be worth the pain.

Soon Tyrel was a barred owl fledgling, standing near the lump of pink terry cloth. The owl slowly turned it’s head to regard us and instantly puffed up. All it’s feathers fluffed and it looked twice as big. It opened its wings and began beating them at the air—clearly not trying to fly but warn us back. A low hissing sound started to come out of Tyrel’s beak as he continued to puff and flap. 

“Oooh, he lost it,” Gil laughed, “he’s just an owl.”

Kioshi pulled his legs up onto the bed. I didn’t blame him—we had firsthand knowledge now of just how sharp owl beaks and talons were.

We couldn’t wait for Tyrel to figure things out; Katherine and Everett were waiting for him. I wracked my brain for ways to help and then suddenly remembered the parrots back home in Hawai’i. At night the caged parrots would have blankets pulled over their cages to help calm them down and let them sleep. 

I quickly reached up and grabbed the blanket off my bed. As Gil and Kioshi watched curiously I approached Tyrel from the side. The owl hissed and puffed at me but I could throw the blanket from far enough away that he wouldn’t be able to get me. I grinned a little and threw it so it sailed clear over the owl and covered him completely. 

“This is how you tell birds it’s night time,” I laughed, watching as the lump of owl!Tyrel calmed slowly. I crouched down and carefully lifted one edge of the blanket. I watched the light creep in slowly until it fell on Tyrel’s face. He blinked and looked up at me, calm and feathers smooth.

[Thanks,] he grumbled.

“Don’t mention it.”

I opened the door and quickly checked that we were in the clear. I stood to the side and ushered Tyrel out, closing the door behind him. I leaned up against the wood and regarded the other two. I could tell they were just as nervous as I was—even though we were all doing our best to hide it. I shrugged and tapped my fingers against the wood behind me.

“What do we think about maybe having a scout?”

“Like—to go out? Katherine said we should stay,” Kioshi frowned.

“I meant like—maybe on the roof?”

“As an owl or spider or cat?” Gil glanced out the window. “The problem with spider is how long it has to take to get anywhere.”

“And with the cat you run the risk of being seen with the real cat,” Kioshi added.

“Owl then,” I smiled, “I can do it. I’ll go sit up on top of the cabin and watch. I can keep an eye on the field race too—in case things start going down. I should be able to see the medical tent and store too. I can report back to you guys if I see anything.”

“It’s a good idea,” Kioshi nodded. “Go for it.”

It was time to go owl!

I formed a picture in my head of the barred owl I had acquired. I had to work hard to keep the same owl in my mind as I kept thinking about all the other kinds of owls that I knew. Morphing—and the concentration it took to do it—was hard for me since my ADD didn’t quite understand what was so important about a single owl. Barred owl. They were small-ish and kind of striped/spotted. 

Suddenly markings began to appear on my skin—not feathers, but spots and stripes. My skin tone was already a lot darker than most of the group—save Tyrel—but it shifted and became a different shade of brown, highlighting the markings. The color around my face and chest, under my arms and stomach began to lighten significantly. I had thought the feathers would make cool tattoos but now that I’d seen this I realized this would be the coolest tattoo ever! I had to stop my mind from wandering and focus once more on the barred owl.

Shrinking was next. I was suddenly wearing my shirt like a blanket, and tried to move so that I wasn’t completely covered in it when I was done morphing. My leg bones cracked and shifted and I caught myself with my still-human hands before falling flat on my face. It was hard to support a human body—even a really small one—on shifting bird feet. The talons were super good for grabbing and holding onto branches but not so much standing on solid ground like the inside of a cabin.

Would those feet be good or bad in sports? Could I improve my skateboard game by morphing just my feet!? Could I morph just my feet?

Once more I had to bring the barred owl into the forefront of my mind and hold it there. I needed to become an owl—then I could hypothesize about winning every skateboard competition in the world.

The opposite of pressure suddenly filled my head. It was almost like being dizzy or waking up too fast. My skull was changing shape and my ears were folding in on themselves. One of them slid higher up and one of them stayed roughly in the same place. I hadn’t known before morphing the first time that owl ears weren’t parallel like people ears. It was super weird. I was deafened for a few seconds before a pop from one and then the other ear signaled my new hearing apparatuses were functioning.

My eyes clouded over and then blacked out for a second as they too changed. They became huge, color changed and my irises adapted—now my home was in the dark. My nose melted down into my lips and everything puckered forward until it became hard and curved.

I was hideous—more so than usual—because none of my feathers had appeared yet. I was an ugly, bald owl. I could even turn my head and see all of myself and it was not a good idea. Thankfully the feathers happened next and quickly, puffing out all over my cold body and settling down to feel like the clothes I pulled myself free of.

I gave a soft hoot at Gil and Kioshi. Gil had moved to open the window and waved me over. I hopped a few times to gain the height I needed and toppled out of the window. I threw open my wings and was swooped into the air. It was really tempting to just keep flying, even just once around the campground—but I had a job to do. I turned course and settled down on the most comfortable part of the roof I could find—waddling around until my talons found a comfortable purchase. Waddling was fun.

I settled in and turned my eyes outward. 

I could see the field easily off to the right. There was a lot of movement and color, I could even hear the commotion a little bit. It looked like regular outdoorsy type team building stuff. I didn’t see anything weird just yet. Turning my gaze towards the cabin I spotted Katherine and Everett turning the corner and walking into the convenience store—from where I was I could only see where it backed to the medical tent, I couldn’t see the front door. I hope Tyrel was inside already or in place to go inside.

I turned my head back towards the field and saw weird movement off to one side. A group of three girls had stepped away from the races and they didn’t look good. One of them was kind of hunched over and the other two looked unsteady. They were all kind of huddled together and I could tell super easy that things were getting underway.

[Guys, it’s starting,] I reported to the duo in the cabin. [I see three girls moving away from the races and they look like they feel sick.]

“That’s… not good,” Gil’s voice was muffled but the window near her was open and I could hear enough to know what she’d said. “You need to tell the others.”

“Can you see fire?” Kioshi asked, strained.

[No, not yet.]

“This is not good,” Kioshi continued, “things are moving too fast. We need a fire and we need it now—if we don’t stop this… this whole camp is going to be Controllers! They’ll know we’re involved because we’ll be the only ones who aren’t yeerks.”

[Wait—wait I see something!]

I turned my attention back towards the convenience store. The back door had burst open and an older guy in one of The Sharing t-shirts stepped outside. He was rubbing his phone on his pants and he looked angry. He moved quickly out of the store and then ducked into the medical tent.

[Some guy just ran out of the convenience store—he was a Sharing guy.]

I could hear Gil and Kioshi talking inside but my attention was still on the store. Tyrel—or at least I assume it was Tyrel—darted out of the back door right before it closed.

[Tyrel is out!]

He settled into the tree near the medical tent and I lost sight of him. Almost immediately afterward Tom, Principal Kendrick and Mrs.Burns stepped out of the medical tent. All of them looked serious and none of them meant anything good. They were headed towards the convenience store.

[Guys! You’ve got incoming! Set the fire and get out of there!] I shouted, thinking about the duo in the store.

[Something is wrong with their eyes!] Tyrel called from the tree. [The Controllers—something is up with their eyes!]

Suddenly I saw it—hope!—in the form of smoke of course. I let out an owl hoot of joy and puffed up happily.

[I see smoke!] I reported to Kioshi and Gil.

[Shit is about to go down,] Tyrel reported back. [I’m just outside the tent and they seem mighty fuckin’ pleased with themselves.]

“Do you see Katherine and Everett?” Kioshi called up, now obviously much closer to the window.

[Ye-yeah they’re just coming around the store now. Everett is uh… he’s having a hard time but they’re both in my sight.]

I kept my eyes on Katherine and Everett but Gil and Kioshi caught my attention. I could only hear every few words but I could tell they were trying to decide what to do. They didn’t want to jeopardize anything but they felt helpless. They both decided to morph and see what they could do—at the very least they wouldn’t just be standing around. I understood that feeling!

Then, just a few seconds later, I heard commotion from inside the cabin. I heard the same angry, agitated owl noises that Tyrel had made. My owl mind instantly told me those were scared noises—the noises you made when a predator was eying you. It translated to: leave me alone or I’ll mess you up!

Then, echoing those noises, I heard hissing and growling. Cat noises! My owl and human brain both understood those noises. It didn’t take long to figure out what had happened after that. Kioshi and Gil had both morphed—Gil cat and Kioshi owl—and had both lost control. Now they were eyeing each other up locked inside the cabin!

[Knock it off you two!] I shouted at them suddenly. [Get a grip! You’re animals but you’re not animals! You’re people! You’re people who are now animals!]

[Woah,] I heard Kioshi say after a second and the noises quieted down.

[Yikes,] Gil agreed, [is it weird that for a second I though you’d taste good?]

[Yes, Gil, that’s weird. This whole thing is weird. Weird is now not-weird it’s normal and I am very upset about this.]

I shifted as I suddenly caught sight of another owl flying up from the cabin window. It swooped in and landed near me, waddling forward to get a look around. Not long after I watched a cat trot off towards the convenience store.

[Tyrel, where are you?] Kioshi asked as he trained his eyes on Katherine and Everett.

[… lookin’… at a yeerk pool,] Tyrel responded.

[Don’t go in!] Gil laughed.

[No shit,] Tyrel grumbled. [I’m—I’m gonna pull the plug on doomsday!]

No sooner could I ask what he meant by that than I saw what he meant by that. There was some bumping and thumping in the medical tent and then suddenly the whole thing started to collapse. It was a little faster than a cloth fluttering to the ground but not by much. It seemed like whatever held the pole and tent together in the center had been separated and now that they support was gone the whole thing was coming down.

From under one side the guy I’d seen book it from the convenience store wiggled his way free. He started yelling for Kendrick, waving his arms and banging on the side of the convenience store. Instantly the back door opened and the trio poured out, dashing for the falling tent. I soon lost sight of them as they—and the man who’d been yelling for them—disappeared back under the tent.

[Aww fuck me,] Tyrel grumbled. [I’m ok just—hopping my way out now.]

I saw Katherine make her move. As the tent covered everyone inside it also provided her with cover as it continued to fall downward, held up only by those inside. From where she stood she was hidden from anyone on the other side of the tent, guarded by the convenience store and one of the other cabins from any other prying eyes. I couldn’t see exactly what she was doing but seconds after she stepped away flames started. They were quick and they were huge and they grabbed hold of the medical tent almost immediately.

Katherine returned to Everett and they booked it back towards the cabin, stopping to pick up cat!Gil on the way.

I turned to look at Kioshi.

[I feel like our plan is going well.]

[I… can’t tell.]

[They think we’re andalite renegades, ya’ll!] Tyrel reported as he shot upwards and into the air, free of the tent.

[That’s not quite right,] Gil chuckled.

[It was your brother that said it.]

[Fuck.]

Under our watchful eyes Katherine and Everett approached the cabin. I expected them to walk in but they didn’t. Instead Katherine started running towards the field in the distance. She threw her arms into the air and began waving them around like a mad woman.

“FIRE!” Her voice was clear as day. “FIRE! There’s a fire! EVERYBODY RUN!”

The chaos was immediate and it was glorious.

The kids were equal parts curious and terrified. Some of them ran in circles just like in cartoons, some ran towards the woods, some ran just… away. Others ran towards Katherine and towards where the smoke was now clearly billowing. The adults all ran in one direction—towards the smoke. Some of them seem more concerned with keeping the kids back and away but they all ran in that direction.

Near the cabin I could see Katherine stop and turn back, catching her breath as she called 911. I could hear her yelling to Everett to text their mother.

[I’m heading back to the construction site,] Tyrel piped in as he flew overhead. [Our stuff is still back there and I gotta make sure they ain’t found it.]

Katherine and Everett, with Gil prancing at their feet, moved back into the cabin. I looked over at Kioshi and he nodded his owl head. We pretty much fell off the roof and fluttered back inside.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KILOHANA CONTINUES

Once more we were all inside—minus Tyrel. Kioshi, Gil and I all started to demorph and—not that I was looking—but it was hard not to noticed that as Gil started to morph back… her pants morphed back with her. I raised my eyebrows but had to look away and concentrate on demorphing myself.

“Oh, well, I’ve don’t that trick but not quite like this,” Gil said a second later. 

“Is everyone … dressed?” Kioshi asked quietly. I pulled up my shorts and gave a muffled yes through my shirt. Gil responded in kind.

“My pants—morphed with me!” Gil said excitedly, rubbing her hands down her pants with a smile, almost like she was proud of them.

“M-mom wants to know if w-we need her to p-pick us up?” Everett said as he indicated his phone.

“No, tell her there are a ton of kids who need out and I think they’ve still got busses here for us. Tell her to pull some strings though and get people out here—tell her this place has been just piss poor managed. We need to pin this all on The Sharing. We need to besmirch their name in every way we can! Get mom out here to investigate!”

“Wait…” Kioshi said after a minute, looking at the button in his hand and the pouch around his neck. “I had both buttons inside the pouch when I morphed and when I morphed back I was still wearing the pouch… Gil, where was your button?”

“In my pants’ pocket…”

“That is it! That is why the andalite wore a one piece suit! These—these let the clothes morph with us!” Kioshi waved his button in the air excitedly.

“Oh man that is good news,” I laughed, “I do not want to have to keep worrying about being naked in weird places. Wait, when did you two get buttons?”

“While you were scouting,” Gil smiled and waved her button at me.

“I g-got one too,” Everett said, then frowned and turned to his sister. “K-katherine… I don’t wa-want to ride the bus back,” he sounded more than a little upset at the prospect of having to do such. 

Kioshi stood up quickly.

“I can get us out of here,” he said with more confidence than I’d heard in him yet. “I can get us all out of here and to my house. We’ll be safe there for at least a little while.”

“All of us?” Katherine indicated to the roof. It took me a second to realize she meant Tyrel.

“Yes.”

“Do it!” Katherine nodded.

Kioshi pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and moved into a corner of the cabin. I watched him text—not necessarily to eavesdrop or anything—but all the text in his phone was in Japanese writing so none of it made any sense to me.

“Mom s-says she’ll look into the f-fire,” Everett reported.

“She’s going to investigate?” Katherine clarified.

“Is your mom FBI or something?” Gil asked, starting to pack quickly. It was a good idea. I followed her lead.

“She’s a f-field forensic invest-tigator.”

“Cool!” I said over my shoulder. 

“Note to self: do not piss off Everett and Katherine’s mom…” Gil muttered under her breath.

“Ev, tell her The Sharing has been mad about having to make accommodations for you since we got here. Tell her it’s like they’ve had it out for us or something.”

“They will be here in thirty minutes,” Kioshi reported back, stuffing his phone into his pocket and starting to pack.

I did a quick double-take. It had been an almost three hour drive from the school to get out here. Either Kioshi lived a lot closer to the campground than us or he had called a race-car to come get us. I chuckled at the idea.

“Hey what are we gonna do about Tyrel?” Gil asked, continuing to stuff things into her bags.

“Damn,” Katherine hissed. “Somebody morph and thought speak out to him.”

“On it!” Gil said quickly. She had just barely started the morph when Tyrel’s voice popped into our heads. He sounded far away and it was hard to make out all of his words but enough came through to make sense.

[…MIB motherfuckers. All gone—everything at the construction site is gone. When the ship blew up it musta blown everything sky high. They just cleaned up a bit and made it look more natural or some shit.]

Gil was about halfway into a cat morph—and looked like a sick old woman—but decided to try her thought speak. Her voice was much stronger than Tyrel’s.

[Hey, hurry back. Kioshi is getting us all out of here somehow.]

[Oh shit, word. I’ll be right there!]

Gil morphed back with a smug look on her face. We were all started to get good at the morphing thing. I wondered what else we could do with it. Could I morph a cat with eagle wings? Could I morph just gills onto myself and breathe underwater? The ideas were endless and I really couldn’t wait to try them all out. Yeah the whole yeerk thing was bad and it was nagging at the back of my mind—but we couldn’t fight the yeerks full time, we were just kids after all.

I finished shoving everything I’d brought with me into my bags and zipped them all up. I stared at them and wondered why I thought I would need so much stuff. I also remembered that I had a one piece body armor swim suit at home—I wore it when I went out surfing. If those buttons really did mean we could morph clothing then I already had something I could wear!

I glanced at my left hand where I had felt the tingling earlier that day. Kiosh, Gil, Everett and Tyrel now all had their own buttons and I could only think that we would all soon have them. I wondered how I was going to put it on my body armor…

[MIB! I was fucking right!]

A few of us gasped as Tyrel’s voice was suddenly back in our heads. 

“Ugh what is he talking about!” Gil shouted, pressing her hand to her head.

Seconds later an owl shot into the room. He almost smacked right into the far wall but managed at the last second to catch himself and turn. Katherine picked up the bath robe and tossed it over the owl. The moving and growing bumps indicated that Tyrel was morphing out.

“Ok, once you’ve got a working mouth, why don’t you try telling us in a normal volume what the hell you were screaming about?” Gil pressed, hands on her hips.

“There is a helicopter heading here! Some firetrucks too but mostly—a helicopter! That construction site was wiped clean—like I said—and its gotta be connected.”

Tyrel’s rant was cut off by a notification ding from Kioshi’s phone. He glanced at it and nodded. 

“That’s the ride. Let’s go.”

“Wait a minute—wait a minute!” Tyrel moved to block the door. “I can’t just go out there! Fire or no fire—I’m not supposed to be here and I’m wearin’ nothin’ but a robe! I can’t just stroll outta here!”

“Get small,” Katherine said quickly. “I’ll carry you.”

“Kath-er-ine,” Tyrel said slowly, pressing his hands together, “I am not gettin’ stuck as a fuckin’ spider.”

“It won’t take us two hours to get to my house,” Kioshi provided, “you will have plenty of time to morph back.”

Tyrel frowned. He clearly didn’t seem entirely comfortable with the idea but he didn’t really have another choice. As he stepped back and began to morph I watched curiously. I hadn’t really been paying attention to the other morphs that had happened around me so I wanted to really watch this one.

It was gross—super cool—but super gross. It also seemed to take a little longer than our other morphs.

[Ok, so it looks like there may be a limit to how many times a day we can do this shit,] Tyrel’s voice was in our heads as we stepped out of the cabin, bags in hand. [I am fuckin’ exhausted ya’ll.]

None of us could respond to him. As we stepped out of our cabin a helicopter had set down near the far end of the campground. A helicopter! A man who looked almost exactly like the CIA agents you see in TV was standing just outside the copter. As we started to walk towards it I heard Everett laugh.

“This is the r-ride?!” He asked, excitement plain-as-day on his face. Kioshi just nodded.

“I think we all should have a conversation,” Katherine said—just as awestruck but trying to maintain a kind of control.

“Not here, when we get to my house.” Kioshi said and everyone nodded.

As we got closer we saw Mrs.Burns sprint over to the agent at the chopper. We watched as they had a brief conversation, during which Mrs.Burns did a lot of nodding and smiling. Getting closer Mrs.Burns stepped away and approached us.

“I’m really sorry you all felt this was necessary!” She called so that we could hear her over the helicopter. “We have busses and were prepared to get everyone home safely and—”

“Yeah we’ll just do this. Thanks!” Gil said dismissively.

“Yeah bye,” Kioshi added.

Everett immediately slipped on his headphones and I couldn’t do much more than chuckle. Katherine however, Katherine almost slid up to Mrs.Burns like she was going to start a fight.

“You’re lucky we stayed as long as we did with the way this was managed! This whole thing was—”

“That’s fine, Katherine, it’s enough,” Kioshi hissed quickly, trying to grab her arm and pull her away. As he did, as Mrs.Burns paused to wave us ‘goodbye’, I saw her façade fade. It was just for a split second but I saw her expression change and I knew I’d remember that look for a long time.

Mrs.Burns was going to be an enemy we needed to watch.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KILOHANA CONTINUES

Moving closer to the helicopter Kioshi had called for us, the agent stepped forward. He smiled wide and gave a low bow to Kioshi—which Kioshi returned. The agent was an older guy, fit but graying. He looked kind.

“Where to, Master Kioshi?” The agent called, loud enough that we all heard. We all turned to look, awestruck, at Kioshi.

“Home,” he said, smiling. This was the happiest and most relaxed I had seen him yet. Granted I could imagine how comforting it would be for him to be home—for any of us really. So much had happened in such a short time that home seemed like a good place to be. Danger may still be lurking—especially in Gil’s case—but at least home was safe and secure in theory. Our own beds would provide better places to sleep and think than a campground.

As we climbed into the helicopter the pilot gave us a quick safety lesson and we all put on the connected headsets. Kioshi carefully nudged Everett and indicated the set. Everett very quickly replaced his own with those provided. Tyrel let out a string of curse words in thought speak, complaining about the noise and the wind as we took off.

“Kioshi, what the fuck?” Gil asked, laughing.

“Oh now it’s what the fuck!?” Kioshi shot back, though he was still smiling.

“Let’s just—maybe not try to hold a conversation in a loud helicopter,” Katherine offered cautiously. 

“Hell of a weekend, huh, guys?” The agent—Liam Hayes—offered as he glanced over his shoulder at us.

“You have no idea,” Kioshi, Everett, Katherine and I said in almost complete unison.

“You know if you wanted to start fires we could have arranged something,” Hayes continued with a clear laugh in his voice.

“We didn’t want to start them!” Gil said immediately. 

“Is that an admission of guilt?” Hayes continued in a joking tone.

“No!” Gil shot back with a laugh.

The ride lasted about thirty minutes. It was awesome! I mean I had even been flying as an owl a few hours ago and the helicopter ride was still awesome. Seeing the area I lived from such a high vantage point was strange. I could recognize places and kind of see where we were headed but it was still odd to see it from that angle. I realized towards the end of our ride that we were headed towards the rich end of town—obviously—and Kioshi’s house was insane. INSANE. It was a huge mansion with two smaller houses nearby. There was a huge brick wall separating the front of the house—and the four fountains and long driveway there—from the rest of the road. In the back of the house there was a visible outdoor pool area, a huge cleared yard, manicured wood-ish area beyond that and even beyond that was attached acreage that looked to be wetlands—protected by the state. It was like some kind of reserve. It looked like something out of a super hero movie.

“You live here!?” Gil shouted.

The helicopter set down and we all piled out, bags and all. Hayes offered to call someone to carry our bags but none of us were willing to let them go. 

“We are just going to head to my room,” Kioshi told Agent Hayes. “Are my parents home?”

“Ah, your mother is out. Your father is here but I believe he’ll be reporting to work in the hour.” 

“Arigato,” Kioshi said with another soft bow, much less formal than before.

“Of course. Oh! One more thing before I forget, the bottom-level pool is closed for maintenance. They’re trying to replace the filters.”

With that Kioshi led us into his house. I would repeat for you the tour but it was only a few minutes—not the whole house—and I was too awestruck to remember much. I think around the time he got to the fourth entertainment room my brain kind of fuzzed out and nothing made sense anymore. He had a literal movie theater in his house!

Kioshi’s room was up a few flights of stairs. It looked like a small apartment—complete with it’s own bathroom, a small balcony, a huge flat screen tv and even a small kitchen/sink area in the corner! The whole room was pretty barren but soft and welcoming. The carpet was particularly great after the campground and everything we’d gone through.

I flopped down and the rest of the group did the same. Katherine lifted her hand and Tyrel climbed out from where he’d hid in her hair. She gently set him on the floor and he scurried off.

“I hate to harp on a bad note,” Katherine started with a sigh, “but that thing Agent Hayes mentioned about the pool has me worried.”

“My parents are going to worry,” Gil said suddenly, looking a mix between annoyed and scared, “and what am I going to do about Tom?”

“I can—you can make any phone calls you need to make. I can get you rides or whatever you need. Really, it is not a problem…”

[Does someone want to try and explain to people here that there is one more person in this group?] Tyrel groaned from somewhere across the room. [I don’t want any trouble when I show up since I wasn’t able to enjoy the damned helicopter like the rest o’you.]

“Trust me—it’s fine. No one will ask questions…” Kioshi’s voice was… sad? “Even if they do—it won’t be a problem.”  
Tyrel suddenly popped up behind Kioshi’s bed. He was wearing the pink terrycloth bathrobe from earlier. He sat on the edge of Kioshi’s bed.

“What about clothes? You don’t think you could borrow some that would fit, do ya?”

Kioshi paused and glanced over at Tyrel. He studied him for a moment and then nodded. 

“Yes, I can get you clothes.”

“So it seems like pockets work?” Katherine questioned as she walked towards Tyrel. He pulled his button from the pocket and nodded.

“The pouch worked as well,” Kioshi said, pausing and pulling out a few items from his hoodie’s front pocket. He pulled out the pouch—which had his button and the andalite’s button—and something else… He shifted it and revealed the hologram. It was one of the ones I had seen on the andalite ship when Tyrel, Gil and I had gone looking for the cube. The image was of Tyrileon standing in a field, waving over her shoulder.

“Where did you get that?!” Katherine gasped as we all moved to stare at the hologram.

“Did you lift that from the ship?” Gil asked, almost giddy.

It was… good to see Tyrileon again, even just like this. It was like looking at a picture of an old friend. It was sad.

“She is wearing her button,” Kioshi said, indicating the small object in the picture, “on a one piece suit thing. That might not be everything that they do but—it is something at least.”

“Ok, ok, ok,” Katherine said, stepping away and pacing again a little, “we can work with that. We can make pockets! Oh! We can make pockets so we can carry all our stuff!”

“G-guys,” Everett said, sounding almost as excited as he had about the helicopter, “we need to g-go to the zoo or Ma-Maymont or something. We ne-need to touch animals!”

“Lots of animals!” I added, pumping my fist into the air.

“Oh! Maymont has the petting zoo, right?” Gil added.

“And a bobcat…” Tyrel pondered.

“Maymont?” Kioshi asked quietly. “My father works at Maymont—he can get us in.”

“So it’s your mother that does the political thing?” Katherine asked. This earned her an odd look from the group. “On the helicopter—there was a logo for Oguri. I’ve seen it before. She’s like a campaign manager or something, right?”

“Or something,” Kioshi said. I glanced up as Katherine gave him a look but I missed whatever had transpired between them. I was still too busy looking at the hologram that we were passing around carefully.

“Oh, that reminds me, I think we can tell who the Controllers are if we look at their eyes,” Tyrel piped up, lounging on Kioshi’s bed.

“You said that,” I nodded. “What do you mean?”

“Can you describe it?” Kioshi asked.

“It was like… something behind the eyes? I dunno. Almost like if you took an x-ray of the eyes it would be… behind them? It was really obvious.”

“I didn’t see anything in Mrs.Burns’ eyes,” Gil muttered.

“Maybe it was the owl?” I suggested. “Didn’t Tyrileon say we could tell?”

“Certain morphs, yeah, I think she said certain animals would be able to tell,” Katherine agreed, nodding. 

“I was staring at their eyes being an asshole at the time,” Tyrel offered with a smile.

“Did-did you poop on someone’s phone?” Everett asked, laughing.

“Oh hell yes I did! Then I fucked up a keyboard!” Tyrel shouted triumphantly.

“It’s free reign for mayhem!” I laughed. “I’m gonna love bein’ an animal!”

“We’re going to have a lot to get used to real quick,” Katherine said, trying to calm us down and bring us back to reality.

“Are there any exotic animals here, Kioshi?” Gil asked.

“Uhm, no?” Kioshi responded with a strange look as he pocketed the hologram once more.

“Gil, don’t be rude,” Katherine admonished.

“No it is—it is ok,” Kioshi said with a small nod. “This conversation is a lot better than most of the conversations we’ve been having recently so, it is ok.”

“I don’t uhm, want to upset you or offend you Kioshi but I am still really worried about the thing Agent Hayes said about the pool. I really want to check it out.”

“No, it—you are right. We cannot really trust anyone. I am sure we can go check it out. I am not sure what we are looking for but—”

“We’re looking for a yeerk pool,” Gil said with a shrug. “Tyrel, didn’t you say you saw the one inside the tent?”

“Oh!” Tyrel jumped up. “I did! In one of those little pond insert thingies,” he made a shape with his hand. “It was full of thick liquid, almost like… mud kinda, but orange. Think Mars.”

“Terrifying and awful,” Kioshi moaned.

“Wait, orange?” I asked with a slight grimace. “I was picturing them blue…” I laughed as a few of the group looked at me strangely.

Suddenly my left hand was on fire! I mean, not literal fire, I mean it started to burn like it was on fire. I gasped and grabbed my wrist, pulling my hand up to look at it. It was bad—really bad—and just before it got so bad I started screaming… it stopped. Then with a pop the small button lay on my palm. I stared at it for a second in disbelief before reaching out and picking it up.

“Isn’t that the most fucked up sensation?” Tyrel bemoaned, looking at Katherine who stared at her own button. Now it seemed the whole group had their buttons ready. 

I frowned.

“Y’know, can we get something to eat first? I’m starving.”


End file.
